Extraction, Territory, and Inequalities: Gas in the Bolivian Chaco

Conflicts over extractive industry have emerged as one of the most visible and potentially explosive terrains for struggles over distribution, territory, and inequality in the Andes. We explore these relationships in Bolivia, focusing on gas extraction in the Chaco region of the southeastern department of Tarija. We consider how the expansion of extractive industry intersects with territorializing projects of state, sub-national elites, and indigenous actors as well as with questions of inequality and inequity. We conclude that arguments over the territorial constitution of Bolivia are inevitably also arguments over gas and the contested concepts of equity underlying its governance. © Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 2010. All rights reserved.This is an original manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Canadian Journal of Development Studies in 2010, available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02255189.2010.966929

Anatomy of a Regional Conflict: Tarija and Resource Grievances in Moraless Bolivia

In 2008, the Department of Tarija became the epicenter of national political struggles over political autonomy for lowland regions at odds with the Morales administration. In September, following a series of regional referenda on autonomy and a national recall election, citizen committees in Tarija mobilized urban-based sectors and organized a general strike against the central government. It is unhelpful to understand the strike as simply an act of political sabotage orchestrated by racist regional elites. The factors driving protest and interest in autonomy are varied and deeply related to patterns of hydrocarbons extraction in the department that have allowed for the mobilization of grievances and the cultivation of resource regionalism at departmental and intradepartmental scales. Alongside class and ethnicity, identities of place and region can be equally important in processes of mobilization, and the resonance of these spatialized identities is particularly important in resource-extraction peripheries. © 2010 Latin American Perspectives. Available download is the accepted version for publication

MRSA Screening: Can one swab be used for both culture and rapid testing? An evaluation of chromogenic culture and subsequent Hain GenoQuick® PCR amplification/detection.

We evaluated the Hain GenoQuick® (GQM) methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) assay for the rapid detection of MRSA using one swab, i.e. the same screening specimen was used first for MRSA culture and then for rapid testing by PCR, as this would be the preferred option for routine diagnostic testing. GQM detected current prevalent Irish MRSA strains incorporating all known SSCmec types including Panton-Valentine leukocidin positive strains. All methicillin resistant coagulase negative staphylococci tested were negative but three of seven gentamicin-resistant MSSA strains tested were identified as MRSA by the GQM method. The theoretical ex-vivo limit of detection of the assay was 704 colony forming units (CFU) per GQM assay reaction (1.7x104CFU/ml) when MRSA suspensions were used for DNA extraction or 1.4x103 CFU/swab (1.4x104 CFU/ml) using MRSA absorbed onto Copan screening swabs. We demonstrated that swab processing on chromogenic agar prior to PCR resulted in some inhibition of the PCR reaction, increasing the limit of detection of the assay by a factor of 4. Based on the processing of 540 screening specimens (nasal and groin) by culture first and GQM second, the specificity and positive predictive value were both 100%, the negative predictive value was 92%, and the sensitivity was 57%. Culture followed by PCR from one specimen is not optimal for the rapid detection of MRSA. Further laboratory validation of the GQM assay is required to determine the true diagnostic sensitivity and value of this kit in routine microbiology laboratories, either with PCR before culture or using two specimen

The Infrastructure-Extractives-Resource Governance Complex in the Pan-Amazon: Roll backs and Contestations

Large-scale access and energy infrastructure projects, together with expanding investments in natural resource extraction, pose significant challenges to biodiversity conservation, forest cover, and the defence of forest peoples\u27 rights and livelihoods across the wider Amazon region. Following a period in which safeguards and forest dwellers\u27 territorial rights were strengthened under more permissive political opportunity structures, the current period has been characterized by efforts to weaken these protections and to facilitate large-scale private investment in previously protected lands. We describe these investment-based threats to forests and rights, and the nature of regulatory rollbacks in the region. We then discuss some of the ways in which social movement actors have responded to these pressures and the extent to which they have affected the policies driving these pressures on forests and rights. While in prior decades movements were able to exercise mediated influence on policy, at present the channels open to them are mostly indirect, though opportunities for collaboration between movements organizations and rights-defending government agencies do emerge periodically offering channels for mediated influence

Medical curriculum : how do we manage incidental findings in educational settings?

Medical curricula encompass two practical-based teaching categories with likelihood of identifying incidental findings (unexpected and previously undiagnosed findings with potential health implications) in live models for demonstration purposes. One relates to clinical skills involving peers and simulated or volunteer patients. The other involves laboratory sessions, with live models, for the purposes of demonstrating scientific principles. As educationalists, it is our professional and ethical duty to have guidance on how to manage incidental findings. In this commentary, we have outlined our best practice guidelines formalised as a written policy exploring consent, debriefing, and the teachers’ role. Our aim was to develop an ‘easy-to-follow’ standardised mechanism.PostprintPeer reviewe

Conflicts Over Extractivist Policy and the Forest Frontier in Central America

Central America is characterized by an asymmetric forest transition in which net deforestation is a product of both forest loss and patches of forest resurgence. Forest loss is also associated with rights violations. We explore the extent to which extractive industry and infrastructure investments create pressure on forest resources, community rights and livelihoods. Drivers of this investment are identified, in particular: constitutional, legislative and regulatory reforms; energy policies; new financial flows; and ideas of development emphasizing the centrality of infrastructure in combining geographical integration and economic growth. We discuss forms of contentious action that have emerged in response to these pressures, asking how far and in what ways this contention has elicited changes in the policies that govern investment and extractive industry, and how far such changes might reduce pressure on Central America\u27s remaining forest cover. The paper develops a conceptual framework for analysing relationships among contention, policy change and the resilience of policy changes

Contention and Ambiguity: Mining and the Possibilities of Development

The last decade and a half has witnessed a dramatic growth in mining activity in many developing countries. This article reviews these recent trends and describes the debates and conflicts they have triggered. The authors review evidence regarding debates on the resource curse and the possibility of an extraction-led pathway to development. They then describe the different types of resistance and social mobilization that have greeted mineral expansion at a range of geographical scales, and consider how far these protests have changed the relationships between mining and political economic change. The conclusions address how far such protests might contribute to an \u27escape\u27 from the resource curse, and consider implications for research and policy agendas. © 2008 Institute of Social Studies. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Bebbington, Anthony, et al. Contention and ambiguity: Mining and the possibilities of development. Development and change 39.6 (2008): 887-914, which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2008.00517.x. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited

A model for assessing and correcting project Health

Maintaining the health of a construction project can help to achieve the desired outcomes of the project. An analogy is drawn to the medical process of a human health check where it is possible to broadly diagnose health in terms of a number of key areas such as blood pressure or cholesterol level. Similarly it appears possible to diagnose the current health of a construction project in terms of a number of Critical Success Factors (CSFs) and key performance indicators (KPIs). The medical analogy continues into the detailed investigation phase where a number of contributing factors are evaluated to identify possible causes of ill health and through the identification of potential remedies to return the project to the desired level of health. This paper presents the development of a model that diagnoses the immediate health of a construction project, investigates the factors which appear to be causing the ill health and proposes a remedy to return the project to good health. The proposed model uses the well-established continuous improvement management model (Deming, 1986) to adapt the process of human physical health checking to construction project health

Gas and Development: Rural Territorial Dynamics in Tarija, Bolivia

Framed by concepts of territorial project, social coalitions, and scalar relationships, we analyze rural territorial dynamics under conditions of rapid expansion in natural gas extraction. Analyzing recent economic, political, and territorial transformations of Bolivia\u27s gas-rich region, Tarija, we argue that pre-existing territorial projects of a diverse set of subnational and national actors have: (i) shaped the influence of the gas industry on local dynamics; (ii) changed the scale relationships between local communities, the state, and companies; and (iii) mediated the transformation of territories in ways determined by the nature and aspirations of these territorial projects

Mining and Social Movements: Struggles Over Livelihood and Rural Territorial Development in the Andes

Note: this full-text download is the accepted and/or submitted version of this work. Social movements have been viewed as vehicles through which the concerns of poor and marginalized groups are given greater visibility within civil society, lauded for being the means to achieve local empowerment and citizen activism, and seen as essential in holding the state to account and constituting a grassroots mechanism for promoting democracy. However, within development studies little attention has been paid to understanding how social movements can affect trajectories of development and rural livelihood in given spaces, and how these effects are related to movements\u27 internal dynamics and their interaction with the broader environment within which they operate. This paper addresses this theme for the case of social movements protesting contemporary forms of mining investment in Latin America. On the basis of cases from Peru and Ecuador, the paper argues that the presence and nature of social movements has significant influences both on forms taken by extractive industries (in this case mining) and on the effects of this extraction on rural livelihoods. In this sense, one can usefully talk about rural development as being co-produced by movements, mining companies, and other actors, in particular the state. The terms of this co-production, however, vary greatly among different locations, reflecting the distinct geographies of social mobilization and of mineral investment, as well as the varying power relationships among the different actors involved. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved