Law School Clinic and Community Legal Services Providers Collaborate to Advance the Remedy of Implied Warranty of Habitability in Missouri

This Essay discusses the economic and public policy concerns regarding the implied warrant of habitability law and the ability of tenants in the state of Missouri can raise effective defenses to rent and possession/eviction actions. The authors, Tokarz and Schmook, director and supervising attorney, respectively, of Washington University’s Civil Rights and Community Justice Clinic, evaluate these issues in light of Kohner Props., Inc. v. Johnson, which currently awaits a decision from the Missouri Supreme Court. Tokarz and Schmook use statistical analysis to identify recent trends in favorable results for landlords in disputes with tenants and stress the effects the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision in Kohner could have in future cases involving tenant rights

Migration and Gender: The Case of a Farming Ejido in Calakmul, Mexico

As one of Mexico’s last agricultural frontiers, southern Mexico’s rural farming municipality of Calakmul has long been marked by rural in-migration. In the last few years this process has given place to an explosive growth of primarily male labor out-migration, particularly to the United States. The authors trace the outlines of the migration process from the perspective of one rural Calakmul community, to explore effects of men’s transnational migration on the household and community status of the women remaining behind. Analysis is based on quantitative data collected in 2004 from 25 households, and on in-depth qualitative interviews in 2005 with women whose husbands engage in transnational migration. The authors find preliminary evidence for changes in gender roles and responsibilities, as these adjust to accommodate men’s absences. The evidence for women’s increased participation in household decision-making is much less clear. This, combined with the words of the women, suggests that gender ideology is defended even as gender responsibilities flex. Women’s spatial mobility also appears to improve, but this must be weighed against greater gains in migrating men’s mobility, as well as some women’s unhappiness with the lack of livelihood improvements

The Slow Displacement of Smallholder Farming Families: Land, Hunger, and Labor Migration in Nicaragua and Guatemala

Smallholders worldwide continue to experience processes of displacement from their lands under neoliberal political-economic governance. This displacement is often experienced as “slow”, driven by decades of agricultural policies and land governance regimes that favor input-intensive agricultural and natural resource extraction and export projects at the expense of traditional agrarian practices, markets, and producers. Smallholders struggle to remain viable in the face of these forces, yet they often experience hunger. To persist on the land, often on small parcels, families supplement and finance farm production with family members engaging in labor migration, a form of displacement. Outcomes, however, are uneven and reflect differences in migration processes as well as national and local political economic processes around land. To demonstrate “slow displacement”, we assess the prolonged confluence of land access, hunger, and labor migration that undermine smallholder viability in two separate research sites in Nicaragua and Guatemala. We draw on evidence from in-depth interviews and focus groups carried out from 2013 to 2015, together with a survey of 317 households, to demonstrate how smallholders use international labor migration to address persistent hunger, with the two cases illuminating the centrality of underlying land distribution questions in labor migration from rural spaces of Central America. We argue that smallholder farming family migration has a dual nature: migration is at once evidence of displacement, as well as a strategy for families to prolong remaining on the land in order to produce food

Diversification and Adaptive Capacity across Scales in an Emerging Post-Frontier Landscape of the Usumacinta Valley, Chiapas, Mexico

This study investigates impacts and implications of recent landscape change in rural Mexico, through a case study in the Usumacinta Valley of eastern Chiapas. It addresses types of livelihood diversification strategies associated with changing land cover from 1984–2013, and the processes and roles that vary by actors and their scales of influence. After widespread forest loss and the expansion of extensive cattle ranching during the twentieth century, the region has exhibited several new economic and livelihood strategies in recent decades. Results from a combination of satellite imagery analysis and individual interviews from a wide range of land use decision makers demonstrate the dynamism of this landscape. The introduction of new crops, including teak, rubber and oil palm, as well as off-farm work, continue to shape the social and physical landscape and differentially impact the adaptive capacities of residents. Results indicate that small landholders often need to incorporate more crops into their agricultural portfolio and increase off-farm activities, leading to an atomization of livelihood strategies. By contrast, large landholders are able to pursue more specialized and lucrative agricultural opportunities

Conservation conflict hotspots : mapping impacts, risk perception and tolerance for sustainable conservation management

LL received a grant of excellence for foreigners from the Secretariat of External Relations of the Mexican Government; SC would like to thank the University of Sherbrooke for a Continuous Education Grant, BS was granted a travel grant from Newton Links (RLTG9-LATAM-358429460) and a fieldwork grant (FID-784) by El Colegio de la Frontera Sur and RW received funding from the Scottish Funding Council (Global Challenges Research Fund 2017-18 and 2018-19).Global processes manifesting as activities in local places have led to an increase in documented conservation conflicts. Conservation conflicts are sometimes labelled human-wildlife conflict, focusing only on the direct negative impact of species (usually wildlife) on humans or vice versa. However, many authors now recognize that conservation conflicts arise between people with diverse views, when one party acts against the interests of another. They are thus human-human conflicts and not merely an impact on or from conservation. Conflict is not always directly correlated with impact because perceptions of risk, levels of tolerance and conservation values influence human responses. This review aims to define the concept of ‘conservation conflict hotspots’ and explore its practical applications in conservation. We propose that the interaction of impact, risk perception, level of tolerance in a context of conservation values can be mapped at a local scale, with spatial visualization assisting the prediction, understanding and management of such hotspots. The term conservation value incorporates measures of indigeneity, endemicity and demography along with emotional or cultural attachment to species or places. The umbrella terms of risk perception and tolerance capture many of the aspects of attitude, values and individual demographics that can influence people’s actions, enabling contextualization of relevant social factors at local scales. Spatially mapped layers enable us to plan and target conservation efforts towards human as well as ecological factors. The concept of ‘conservation conflict hotspot’ emphasizes the need for transdisciplinary research to understand underlying drivers of conflict and for dialogical and peace-building approaches to facilitate trust and cooperation amongst actors. We can thus address conflicts and achieve sustainable outcomes.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Telearbeit, Freizeit und Familie: Analyse des Zeitbudgets und der erlebten Beanspruchung

'Um Aufschlüsse über die Zeitverwendung von TelearbeiterInnen zu erlangen, wurden die Zeitbudgets von Telearbeitern über eine Woche hinweg erfasst. Unterschieden wurden Erwerbsarbeit im Betrieb und zu Hause, Haushaltstätigkeiten, familiale Arbeit, persönliche Zeit sowie Schlaf. Zusätzlich wurde die subjektive Beanspruchung betrachtet. Es zeigte sich, dass die Wochenarbeitszeit bei TelearbeiterInnen nach tradiertem Muster verteilt ist. Der Schwerpunkt der Erwerbsarbeit lag auf den Werktagen, während sich die Hausarbeit gleichmäßig auf die ganze Woche verteilte. Die Haushaltsaktivitäten und die Kinderbetreuung lagen überwiegend in der Verantwortung der weiblichen TelearbeiterInnen und folgten somit einer traditionellen Rollenverteilung. Die psychische Beanspruchung während der Telearbeit war verglichen mit den anderen genannten Tätigkeitsklassen am höchsten ausgeprägt. Die Befunde werden im Zusammenhang mit integrierten Modellen der Arbeits- und Lebenswelt diskutiert.' (Autorenreferat

Factors affecting feelings of justice in biodiversity conflicts : towards fairer jaguar management in Calakmul, Mexico

Funding was provided by Mitacs through a Globalink Research Award to MLL, BS and SC, a José-Sarukhan Excellence Award given by the Centro del Cambio Global y Sustentabilidad del Sureste to MLL, an Excellence Award from the Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science to MLL, and a grant from the Université de Sherbrooke to SC.Conservation focuses on environmental objectives, but neglecting social concerns can lead to feelings of injustice among some actors and thus jeopardise conservation aims. Through a case study on a biodiversity conflict around jaguar management in Southern Mexico, we explored actors' feelings of injustice and their associated determinants. We employed a framework distinguishing four dimensions of justice: recognition, ecological, distributive and procedural. By conducting and analysing 235 interviews with farmers and ranchers, we investigated what drive their feeling of injustice, namely their perceptions of the injustice itself, individual characteristics and interactions with their environment. The participants selected 10 statements representing criteria characterizing their feeling of justice toward jaguar management, which they compared using pair-wise comparisons. A pioneering statistical analysis, BTLLasso, revealed that self-interest assumptions were not upheld; feelings of injustice were only weakly influenced by experience of depredation. Feelings of injustice were influenced mainly by factors related to actors' intra-and inter-group relationships (e.g. perception of collective responsibility, perceived coherence in the group to which they identified). This nuanced understanding of how people build their perception of justice can inform fairer and more effective conservation approaches. Whilst details will be context specific, it emerged that building relationships and enabling debate over ecological responsibilities are important and conservation efforts should go beyond merely offering financial compensation. We conclude that perception of justice is a neglected but important aspect to include in integrative approaches to managing biodiversity conflicts, and that novel mixed methods can advance both conceptual and applied understanding in this area.PostprintPeer reviewe

Recent disruptions in the timing and intensity of precipitation in Calakmul, Mexico

This study addresses changes in the timing and intensity of precipitation from 1982 to 2016 from three meteorological stations around Calakmul, Mexico, a landscape balancing biodiversity conservation and smallholder agricultural production. Five methods were used to assess changes in precipitation: the Mann-Kendall test of annual and wet season trends; a fuzzy-logic approach to determine the onset of the rainy season; the Gini Index and Precipitation Concentration Index (PCI) to evaluate the temporal distribution of precipitation; Simple Precipitation Intensity Index (SDII) to evaluate precipitation intensity; and the Rainfall Anomaly Index (RAI) to identify the deficit or surplus of rainfall compared to the long-term mean. Overall, rainfall trends in Calakmul over this period indicate a slight increase, though results of the indices (Gini, SDII, PCI) all indicate that rainfall has become more intense and more unevenly distributed throughout the year. There was no significant trend in the onset date of rainfall or the RAI overall, though there were more pronounced crests and troughs from 2004 to 2016. Higher interannual variability and more pronounced rainfall anomalies, both positive and negative, suggest that rainfall in the Calakmul region has become more extreme. This research informs for management and livelihood strategies in the local region and offers insights for analyses of regional patterns of seasonal precipitation events in tropical landscapes worldwide

Traditional knowledge for climate change adaptation in Mesoamerica : a systematic review

This research was carried out during the first author's postdoctoral research (CVU number 292956 ) funded by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (CONACYT) Mexico.Indigenous and rural peoples have developed close connections with land and nature for millennia. Traditional and local knowledge resulting from such human-environment interactions is embedded in ethnic, linguistic, and cultural contexts, and may assist local communities in adapting to global issues such as climate change. However, the extent to which traditional knowledge supports adaptation to local manifestations of severe socio-environmental changes, the traditional knowledge techniques that play an effective role in adaptation, and the dynamic yet integral aspect of traditional knowledge for indigenous and mestizo cultures remain unclear. Despite an extensive literature on climate change, adaptation, and traditional knowledge in the Global South, Mesoamerican countries are underrepresented. The aims of this systematic review were to address the main manifestations of climate change in Mesoamerican countries, to critically analyze relationships between traditional knowledge and contemporary climate change adaptation and to make recommendations regarding knowledge conservation, production, and exchange for climate change adaptation in the region. We systematically identified, reviewed, and coded 77 relevant papers. Our results show that: 1) most papers do not distinguish between local, traditional, and indigenous knowledge; 2) rainfall variability, droughts, and weather unpredictability are the most frequently expressed experiences of climate change; 3) the main adaptations undertaken by smallholders are changes to the agricultural calendar and crops cultivated, a shift to more sustainable agriculture, and labour diversification to generate off-farm income; and 4) many more articles are published on Mexico than the other Mesoamerican countries, and predominantly by authors from outside Mesoamerica. Local traditional knowledge makes important contributions to climate change actions and policy by observing changing climates, adapting to impacts, and contributing to global mitigation efforts. As a response to increasing climate change challenges, smallholders create new hybrid knowledge by combining traditional and western perspectives. This knowledge evolution will support greater resilience to climate change but may hasten cultural erosion and exacerbate social inequalities in the region unless efforts are taken to maintain cultural integrity.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe