Survey Methodology in Violence-prone Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa

This article discusses the methodological challenges of a service delivery survey in Khayelitsha, a township in Cape Town, South Africa. The survey aimed to gain a better understanding of the relationship between citizen participation and the environmental challenges facing residents in this urban area. Khayelitsha is a township prone to violence. Encountering violence during fieldwork can alter the way researchers execute research, yet this often remains unacknowledged in ‘objective social science’, especially in probability sampling. The article examines the effects of the risk felt by researchers on the research method employed in quantitative surveys. It shows that deliberating on this aspect of the research process is both necessary and useful, especially in terms of recognising the need to factor fear or uncertainty into the ways in which research processes unfold

Collision, Collusion and Coincidence: Pop Art’s Fairground Parallel

This article looks at parallel methods, motivations and modes of consumption between formative British pop art and British fairground art. I focus on two strands, the emergent critical work of the Independent Group and the school of artists based at the Royal College of Art under the nominal leadership of Peter Blake. I use iconographical and iconological methods to compare the content of the art, and then examine how pop art tried to create both a critical and playful distancing from established rules and practices of the artistic canon. I focus on non-institutional cultural groupings and diffuse production and consumption models

People need freshwater biodiversity

Freshwater biodiversity, from fish to frogs and microbes to macrophytes, provides a vast array of services to people. Mounting concerns focus on the accelerating pace of biodiversity loss and declining ecological function within freshwater ecosystems that continue to threaten these natural benefits. Here, we catalog nine fundamental ecosystem services that the biotic components of indigenous freshwater biodiversity provide to people, organized into three categories: material (food; health and genetic resources; material goods), non-material (culture; education and science; recreation), and regulating (catchment integrity; climate regulation; water purification and nutrient cycling). If freshwater biodiversity is protected, conserved, and restored in an integrated manner, as well as more broadly appreciated by humanity, it will continue to contribute to human well-being and our sustainable future via this wide range of services and associated nature-based solutions to our sustainable future

A proposed framework for the systematic review and integrated assessment (SYRINA) of endocrine disrupting chemicals

Background - The issue of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) is receiving wide attention from both the scientific and regulatory communities. Recent analyses of the EDC literature have been criticized for failing to use transparent and objective approaches to draw conclusions about the strength of evidence linking EDC exposures to adverse health or environmental outcomes. Systematic review methodologies are ideal for addressing this issue as they provide transparent and consistent approaches to study selection and evaluation. Objective methods are needed for integrating the multiple streams of evidence (epidemiology, wildlife, laboratory animal, in vitro, and in silico data) that are relevant in assessing EDCs. Methods - We have developed a framework for the systematic review and integrated assessment (SYRINA) of EDC studies. The framework was designed for use with the International Program on Chemical Safety (IPCS) and World Health Organization (WHO) definition of an EDC, which requires appraisal of evidence regarding 1) association between exposure and an adverse effect, 2) association between exposure and endocrine disrupting activity, and 3) a plausible link between the adverse effect and the endocrine disrupting activity. Results - Building from existing methodologies for evaluating and synthesizing evidence, the SYRINA framework includes seven steps: 1) Formulate the problem; 2) Develop the review protocol; 3) Identify relevant evidence; 4) Evaluate evidence from individual studies; 5) Summarize and evaluate each stream of evidence; 6) Integrate evidence across all streams; 7) Draw conclusions, make recommendations, and evaluate uncertainties. The proposed method is tailored to the IPCS/WHO definition of an EDC but offers flexibility for use in the context of other definitions of EDCs. Conclusions - When using the SYRINA framework, the overall objective is to provide the evidence base needed to support decision making, including any action to avoid/minimise potential adverse effects of exposures. This framework allows for the evaluation and synthesis of evidence from multiple evidence streams. Finally, a decision regarding regulatory action is not only dependent on the strength of evidence, but also the consequences of action/inaction, e.g. limited or weak evidence may be sufficient to justify action if consequences are serious or irreversible.The workshops that supported the writing of this manuscript were funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research “Mistra”. LNV was funded by Award Number K22ES025811 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. TJW was funded by The Clarence Heller Foundation (A123547), the Passport Foundation, the Forsythia Foundation, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (grants ES018135 and ESO22841), and U.S. EPA STAR grants (RD83467801 and RD83543301). JT was funded by the Academy of Finland and Sigrid Juselius. UH was funded by the Danish EPA. KAK was funded by the Canada Research Chairs program grant number 950–230607

Nancy Spero

Major retrospective of Spero's work dating from 1962. Essays by Tickner and Bird elaborate the sexual, cultural and psychoanalytic implications of the artist's graphic, carnivalesque imagery and use of text by drawing from a broad reservoir of intellectual sources: Kristeva, Derrida, Artaud, Cixous, Eagleton, etc. Biographical notes. Bibl. 3 p