Food, Pandemics, and the Anthropocene: On the Necessity of Food and Agriculture Change

The COVID-19 crisis demonstrates forcefully that human health, the well-being of animals, and planetary health must not be viewed in isolation—and that they all depend to a large extent on the ways in which we produce, process, trade, and consume food. In this perspective essay, we argue for the centrality of food and agriculture to the epoch of the Anthropocene and why profound changes are needed more than ever. We close with some reflections on how the disruptions associated with the current pandemic also offer the opportunity for the necessary ecological, economic, and social transformation of our agri-food systems—toward healthy humans, animals, and a healthy and biodiverse planet

Chapter 3 Time Depth

This volume presents an interdisciplinary dialogue between sociology, geography, political sciences, history, and literary, cultural and media studies. Together, they contribute to current debates on the (re-)imagining of forms of human responsibility that meet the challenges created by humanity entering an age of scalar complexity

Participación pública en la gobernanza posfordista de espacios verdes urbanos: el caso de los huertos comunitarios en Berlín

This article examines citizen participation in the governance of contemporary urban green space. Rather than exploring normative questions of ideal forms of participatory democracy, it focuses on changing rolesand relationships between local state and non-state actors in order to identify and explain the changing nature of participation. I argue that neoliberal urban restructuring has changed the conditions for participation and thus participation itself in fundamental ways and that we need an account of changes in statehood and governance in order to capture this conceptually. Based on the case of community gardens in Berlin, the article discusses the extent to which this changed relationship is expressed by current citizen participation as well as the potential and problems that result from it. My empirical results show the emergence of a new political acceptance of autonomously organized projects and active citizen participation in urban green space governance. The central argument of this article is that this new acceptance can be conceptualized as an expression of the neoliberalization of cities. Nevertheless, this neoliberal strategy at the same time leads to complex and contradictory outcomes and the resulting benefits are also acknowledged.Este artículo analiza la participación ciudadana en la gestión pública de espacios verdes urbanos contemporáneos. Más que explorar las cuestiones normativas de formas ideales de democracia participativa, el artículo se centra en el cambio de roles y relaciones entre el Gobierno local y los actores no gubernamentales con la finalidad de identificar y explicar la naturaleza cambiante de la participación. Argumento que la reestructuración urbana neoliberal ha cambiado las condiciones de participación, y por tanto la participación en sí misma, de forma fundamental y por ello necesitamos un registro de los cambios en el Gobierno y la condición del Estado para captar este cambio en la participación conceptualmente. Basándose en el caso de los huertos comunitarios de Berlín, el artículo discute sobre en qué medida la participación ciudadana actual refleja este cambio de relaciones así como los problemas y las potencialidades que resultan del mismo. Mis resultados empíricos muestran la emergencia de una nueva aceptación política de proyectos organizados de forma autónoma y de la participación ciudadana activa en la gestión de espacios verdes urbanos. El argumento central de este artículo es que esta nueva aceptación puede ser conceptualizada como una expresión del avance neoliberal en las ciudades. Sin embargo, esta estrategia neoliberal conduce a resultados complejos y contradictorios a la vez que los beneficios resultantes son también reconocidos

Toward Excellence: Exploring Leader Strategies in Chronic Wound Care Centers

The number of chronic wounds is rising in the United States, and health leaders face the economic and health burdens these wounds pose to the U.S. health care system. Many investigators have documented the importance of leadership in promoting excellence and reducing health care costs in chronic disease. Yet, the literature lacks information regarding leader strategies used to promote wound treatment cultures of excellence directed toward improved quality and reduced health costs. This study examined leader strategies used to promote excellence in chronic wound treatment to address the problem of the economic and health burdens associated with chronic wounds. The full range leadership theory (FRLT), concepts of patient-centered care, and the disease-specific centers of excellence (COE) model served as the framework for this study. The research questions focused on identifying key leader strategies used to promote quality and excellence in chronic wound centers. Sources of information used in this case study included a questionnaire, company documents, and news articles. A sample of 30 wound COE leaders within the same company were randomly selected. Open coding and thematic data analysis of participant questionnaires generated themes of quality, communication, patient-centeredness, leadership, work environment, and team work. The study results indicated many of the leaders exhibited leadership styles and behaviors consistent with the FRLT; moreover, the use of patient-centered concepts fostered cultures of excellence. This study is important to health leaders and contributes to positive social change by identifying leadership strategies that improve health outcomes, increase quality of care, and reduce health costs associated with chronic wounds

Hauling data: anthropocene analogues, paleoceanography and missing paradigm shifts

The interdisciplinary study of paleoclimates is symptomatic of how the climate and earth sciences represent a matured practice of pragmatically dealing with purely heuristical strategies and implicit uncertainties. Both have not only become important providers of crucial data for decision making in contemporary societies but are also becoming role models for other sciences. To give an epistemic framework for this new prestige, the paper first focuses on three interconnected conceptual terms that are central to paleoclimatology: the earth itself as an experimental setting that has recorded deep-time climatic events, which could serve as geological analogues to assess the current rapid transition from the Holocene into the Anthropocene. In order to demonstrate the historical foundations of such a rationale, the paper then explores the history of proxy-data generation and analysis by focusing on the development of paleoceanography – a critical discipline in forming a deep-time perspective on climate history. By highlighting the technology-driven transformations of this field during the era of the great oceanographic expeditions and the start of stable isotope analysis in the aftermath of World War II, it argues for a strong historical continuity of the epistemic framework of paleoclimatology

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Anthropocene; Environment and sustainability; Environmental humanities; Environmental media; Indigenous; Media studie