Political Economy of Epidemic Kidney Disease in Sri Lanka

The Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), taking the lives of thousands in poor farming communities in Sri Lanka, is commonly seen as a problem peculiar to the island’s north central dry zone agricultural region. The prevailing bio-medical focus is on identifying one or more “environmental nephrotoxins.” While delineating important controversies on the etiology of the disease, this article seeks to broaden the discourse on the hitherto neglected political economy of CKD in Sri Lanka. In so doing, it seeks to bring together the bio-medical debate on the impact of widespread and unregulated use of agrochemicals on public health and kidney disease with broader global interdisciplinary perspectives on the industrialization of agriculture and the consolidation of food production by transnational agribusiness corporations. The article concludes pointing out environmentally sustainable and socially equitable development and organic agriculture as the long-term solutions to CKD in Sri Lanka and elsewhere

Existential Crisis and Psycho-Social Transformation

As the environment and humanity become mere resources and appendages of technology and the global economy, we face an existential crisis of what it means to be human in nature. Instead of domination and subsumption of society and the environment within the logic of unbridled economic growth, the economy and society must be redesigned to serve the needs of environmental sustainability and human well-being. This calls for a balanced path of human development based on the transformation of consciousness: from dualism, separation and domination, to unity, interdependence and partnership. This psychological transformation requires moving beyond surface political-economic critiques to a reorientation of the much- neglected ethical dimension in modern economy and society. This Presentation will explore these issues synthesizing research-based social science analyses with perspectives drawn from contemporary global environmental and social movements, the field of Consciousness Studies and Buddhist teachings on the Middle Path. Expanding on the Presenter\u27s latest book, Sustainability and Well-Being: The Middle Path to Environment, Society and the Economy (Palgrave MacMillan), this Session will engage participants in an exploration of the existential crisis and our challenge of psycho-social transformation

Population Politics and Women's Health in a Free Market Economy

This article looks critically at the paradigm shift that so many claim occurred at Cairo. It summarizes the thinking of some of the key critical thinkers in the current debate on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the context of neo-liberalism. Development (2005) 48, 43–51. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100192