The challenges of the increasing institutionalization of climate security

A rapid and widespread institutionalization of climate security is underway, led by powerful states and international organizations. Recognition of the climate crisis by security actors as a serious threat to humanity is long overdue, but it is imperative that this institutionalization is critically scrutinized. This commentary highlights specific dangers that accompany the institutional mainstreaming of climate security, including a non-reflexive integration into traditional security paradigms, a growing geopolitical separation between discourses emerging from the Global South and North, and policymaking that tends to draw from a narrow view of the science. Science-based and actionable research informed by pluralistic understandings of climate security is needed to counter this trend

Urban revolution and Chinese contemporary art: a total revolution of the senses

Urban transformation in China has been hailed as a revolution. The pace and scale of change as well as the grand narrative of transformation have been characterized in terms of superlatives – the tallest skyscrapers, the largest shopping malls, the longest bridges and highways, the fastest trains – testifying to the teleology and progress of China’s dream of prosperity. However, behind the sleek and glittering façade lies a story of exclusion, violence, dispossession, and destruction – the ruins of a civilization. This article engages with this side of the story by exploring the dialectic between urban transformation and the parallel development of the visual arts, which has created new regimes of visibility and new hierarchies of representation. In new and large cities alike, the visual arts have been manifesting affections that permeate the contemporary world, creating new possibilities for ‘distributing the sensible’. This article focuses on the artworks produced by Zhang Dali, Dai Guangyu and Jin Feng, whose subject matter involves common people, and it engages with three crucial discursive formations: violence, socio-economic inequality, and utopian dreams. These artists are producing a ‘history from below’ (to borrow E. P. Thompson’s expression): rescuing the common people from ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’. They are making ordinary people assume the importance of the extraordinary. From the point of view of aesthetics, they are enacting a total revolution of the senses and, in Rancière’s words, making ‘heard as speakers those who had been perceived as mere noisy animals’

The concerns of the young protesters are justified: A statement by Scientists for Future concerning the protests for more climate protection

In March 2019, German-speaking scientists and scholars calling themselves Scientists for Future, published a statement in support of the youth protesters in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (Fridays for Future, Klimastreik/Climate Strike), verifying the scientific evidence that the youth protestors refer to. In this article, they provide the full text of the statement, including the list of supporting facts (in both English and German) as well as an analysis of the results and impacts of the statement. Furthermore, they reflect on the challenges for scientists and scholars who feel a dual responsibility: on the one hand, to remain independent and politically neutral, and, on the other hand, to inform and warn societies of the dangers that lie ahead. © 2019 G. Hagedorn et al.; licensee oekom verlag.This Open Access article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CCBY4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)

Inglês e globalização em uma epistemologia de fronteira: ideologia lingüística para tempos híbridos English and globalization through a border epistemology: linguistic ideology for hybrid times

Este artigo focaliza o fenômeno do inglês como língua que colabora na construção da globalização, seguindo os princípios de uma epistemologia de fronteira. Tem o objetivo de contribuir na elaboração de uma ideologia lingüística para os tempos híbridos em que vivemos. Baseia-se em uma teorização assentada nos construtos de Império, histórias locais e performatividade, possibilitando uma redescrição da relação entre inglês e globalização. O inglês é compreendido então como língua de fronteira por meio da qual as pessoas se apropriam de discursos globais e reinventam a vida local em suas performances cotidianas. São analisados exemplos de tais usos do inglês em e-mails translingüísticos e no rap brasileiro. Ao concluir, usa-se uma lógica que reconhece tanto o papel imperial do inglês assim como o seu uso transimperial, que possibilita a reinvenção da vida local não como mímica de designs globais, mas como possibilidade de construir uma outra globalização, anti-hegemônica, em performances lingüísticoidentitárias inovadoras nos fluxos da fronteira.<br>This paper focuses on English as a language which helps to construct globalization, following principles of a border epistemology. It aims at contributing to the elaboration of a linguistic ideology for the hybrid times in which we live. It is based on a theorization informed by the constructs of Empire, local histories and performativity, making it possible to re-describe the relationship between English and globalization. English is then understood as a border language through which people appropriate global discourses and re-invent local life in their everyday performances. Examples of such uses of English in translinguistic e-mails and in the Brazilian rap are analyzed. By way of conclusion, it is used a logic which acknowledges both the imperial role of English and its transimperial use, which may re-invent local life not as mimicry of global designs, but as the possibility of constructing an anti-hegemonic globalization through innovative linguistic-identity performances on the border fluxes