The Ethics and Politics of Care in Times of Crises

This essay is based on The Global Ethics of Care round-table discussion which was organized by the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory at the University of Belgrade in June 2021. The idea for organizing a discussion on this topic emerged as all societies were, and still are, facing a myriad of pressing moral and political issues that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 triggered or, perhaps more precisely, intensified in a dramatic and abrupt way. If it had not been obvious before, indeed, the (ongoing) COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the fact that human beings are needy and vulnerable creatures who depend on one another for physical and emotional care; speaking quite generally, moreover, it deepened various pre-existing inequalities both within and between sovereign states. What are the implications of recognizing human neediness, vulnerability, dependence and interdependence for the ways in which individuals act, the manner in which many societies are currently organized as well as existing domestic and international political practice? What do the values of freedom, equality and care require in times of crises on both the individual and the collective level? Can the ethics of care revitalize our moral commitment to equal human worth as well as to a decent life for all? In this essay, we explore and attempt to provide answers to these and other pertinent questions from the standpoint of the ethics and politics of care

Chemins de vie. Dix-neuf visages et paroles de migrant-e-s, 1956-2012

Dix-neuf entretiens avec des migrant-e-s ont été réalisés et analysés par des étudiant-e-s du Master d’histoire moderne et contemporaine des Universités Lyon 2 et Lyon 3.Ces migrant-e-s appartiennent à diverses générations (le plus âgé, Ferdinand Gonzalez, est née en 1935 et la plus jeune, Anaïs Quenette, en 1995) et sont d’origines géographiques variées (Europe, Afrique du Nord et subsaharienne, Amérique latine…). Ce sont des femmes et hommes qui ont émigré en France pour des raisons de travail, mais aussi pour suivre leurs parents, rejoindre un-e conjoint-e ou simplement pour faire des études supérieures. Certain-e-s ont demandé leur naturalisation, d’autres pas.Le fil rouge qui a été choisi pour structurer les entretiens est celui de « l’insertion » envisagée sous diverses facettes : le départ et les réactions de l’entourage, les représentations liées à la France, mais aussi les réactions des Françaises face à l’Autre, l’insertion sur le marché du travail, l’apprentissage de la langue, le logement comme les différents réseaux tissés dans l’exil, les différentes identités induites et bousculées par la migration.Le volume est organisé en deux parties. La première est l’analyse des entretiens en six grandes thématiques. La deuxième partie regroupe la retranscription intégrale des entretiens menés, qui sont classés par ordre alphabétique des noms de famille, qui peuvent être des pseudonymes. Les retranscriptions sont précédées de quelques lignes méthodologiques sur les conditions de l’entretien

Total energy expenditure is repeatable in adults but not associated with short-term changes in body composition

Low total energy expenditure (TEE, MJ/d) has been a hypothesized risk factor for weight gain, but repeatability of TEE, a critical variable in longitudinal studies of energy balance, is understudied. We examine repeated doubly labeled water (DLW) measurements of TEE in 348 adults and 47 children from the IAEA DLW Database (mean ± SD time interval: 1.9 ± 2.9 y) to assess repeatability of TEE, and to examine if TEE adjusted for age, sex, fat-free mass, and fat mass is associated with changes in weight or body composition. Here, we report that repeatability of TEE is high for adults, but not children. Bivariate Bayesian mixed models show no among or within-individual correlation between body composition (fat mass or percentage) and unadjusted TEE in adults. For adults aged 20-60 y (N = 267; time interval: 7.4 ± 12.2 weeks), increases in adjusted TEE are associated with weight gain but not with changes in body composition; results are similar for subjects with intervals >4 weeks (N = 53; 29.1 ± 12.8 weeks). This suggests low TEE is not a risk factor for, and high TEE is not protective against, weight or body fat gain over the time intervals tested

Variability in energy expenditure is much greater in males than females

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Variability in energy expenditure is much greater in males than females

In mammals, trait variation is often reported to be greater among males than females. However, to date, mainly only morphological traits have been studied. Energy expenditure represents the metabolic costs of multiple physical, physiological, and behavioral traits. Energy expenditure could exhibit particularly high greater male variation through a cumulative effect if those traits mostly exhibit greater male variation, or a lack of greater male variation if many of them do not. Sex differences in energy expenditure variation have been little explored. We analyzed a large database on energy expenditure in adult humans (1494 males and 3108 females) to investigate whether humans have evolved sex differences in the degree of interindividual variation in energy expenditure. We found that, even when statistically comparing males and females of the same age, height, and body composition, there is much more variation in total, activity, and basal energy expenditure among males. However, with aging, variation in total energy expenditure decreases, and because this happens more rapidly in males, the magnitude of greater male variation, though still large, is attenuated in older age groups. Considerably greater male variation in both total and activity energy expenditure could be explained by greater male variation in levels of daily activity. The considerably greater male variation in basal energy expenditure is remarkable and may be explained, at least in part, by greater male variation in the size of energy-demanding organs. If energy expenditure is a trait that is of indirect interest to females when choosing a sexual partner, this would suggest that energy expenditure is under sexual selection. However, we present a novel energetics model demonstrating that it is also possible that females have been under stabilizing selection pressure for an intermediate basal energy expenditure to maximize energy available for reproduction. (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Energy compensation and adiposity in humans

Acknowledgments The DLW database, which can be found at https://doubly-labelled-water-database.iaea.org/home, is hosted by the IAEA and generously supported by Taiyo Nippon Sanso and SERCON. We are grateful to the IAEA and these companies for their support and especially to Takashi Oono for his tremendous efforts at fundraising on our behalf. The authors also gratefully acknowledge funding from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS 153E11KYSB20190045) to J.R.S. and the US National Science Foundation (BCS-1824466) awarded to H.P. The funders played no role in the content of this manuscript. We are grateful for the data submission of David Ludwig and Cara Ebbeling, and for the analysis by Steve Heymsfield of his own data indicating no change in FFM hydration with age in adults.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Variation in human water turnover associated with environmental and lifestyle factors

Water is essential for survival, but one in three individuals worldwide (2.2 billion people) lacks access to safe drinking water. Water intake requirements largely reflect water turnover (WT), the water used by the body each day. We investigated the determinants of human WT in 5604 people from the ages of 8 days to 96 years from 23 countries using isotope-tracking (2H) methods. Age, body size, and composition were significantly associated with WT, as were physical activity, athletic status, pregnancy, socioeconomic status, and environmental characteristics (latitude, altitude, air temperature, and humidity). People who lived in countries with a low human development index (HDI) had higher WT than people in high-HDI countries. On the basis of this extensive dataset, we provide equations to predict human WT in relation to anthropometric, economic, and environmental factors.acceptedVersio