Defending the 'public interest': an assessment of competing actor representations of 'solutions' to growing natural resource deficiencies.

This paper applies a SRT framework to the study of two case studies, namely the recent campaign of opposition to the legalization of hydraulic fracking in the State of New York and the more ongoing debate on land leasing in Africa. In relation to both campaigns, the analysis accounts for the arguments of a major financial institution and industry representatives who stress the safe and value-adding dimensions of these practices, as well as the views of opponents who refute the validity of industry's position and point to the unacceptable risks posed to the community, health and the environment. In spite of a number of obvious differences between these two case studies, not least differences arising from contrasting socio-economic and geo-political settings, there were also some notable similarities. First, was a tendency amongst protesters in both cases to formulate their role as contemporaries in a historically extended struggle for democratic justice. All perceived of themselves as guardians of their community's right to resist a corporate 'invasion' of their territories, like their forefathers and mothers before them. A theme of colonialism was explored in both settings through various identity and thematic anchoring devices that deliberately evoked shared understandings and historical memories of exploitation and human suffering. The evocation of powerful symbols of identity through visual narratives of protest further reinforced the cultural comprehensibility of opponents' message of protest in both contexts

Changing perspectives on natural resource heritage, human rights and intergenerational justice

This paper observes how the social, political and legal life of rights continues to evolve in response to growing natural resource scarcity and deteriorating climate conditions worldwide. In particular, it assesses the type of interpretive repertoires actors bring to bear on issues of justice between generations and human rights eligibility, documenting arguments put forward in defense, as well as against assigning a rights status to those not yet born. It notes how scientific research documenting the ‘forcing effects’ of escalating atmospheric pollution on long-term planetary wellbeing triggers a new conversation on the limits of traditional approaches to environmental justice and highlights the need to consider once again how a more long-term perspectivism on duties, rights and responsibilities can be institutionally applied

Sociology in the 21st Century: Reminiscence and Redefinition

No abstract available

Natural resource inequities, domination and the rise of youth communicative power: changing the normative relevance of ecological wrongdoing

The failure of states to take the necessary actions to prevent global temperatures from soaring may be interpreted as more than an act of environmental negligence. In terms of a knowing imposition of harm, it also represents an act of domination. That is, a deliberate denial of rights to a safe, democratic, and sustainable future. This paper notes the role played by institutional power in preserving this system of domination and in shaping the discursive spaces in which carbon energy options continue to be vigorously defended even in the face of mounting evidence of their danger. Yet as signs of eco-distress grow stronger, so too does a questioning of the legitimacy of this power order. This paper examines how youth employ â communicative powerâ , as the product of a common will formed in non-coercive communication, to counter this domination and reinterpret climate change as the product of dysfunctional decision-making and â abnormalâ justice relations between generations. It notes the significance of these actorsâ mobilization efforts to societal processes of learning about democracy's better potentialities and capacities to transform society from within (via law)

Democracy, Biodiversity and More than Human Justice Imperatives: Institutional Responses to Crisis

In terms of a human responsibility for the wrongful expulsion of non-human nature from natural habitats through wildfires, global warming, the over-exploitation of lands, seas and biological life, humanity is forced to revisit some fundamental issues of late with regard to the ongoing legitimacy of its claims to the Earth’s resources. Can human communities continue to lay claim to remaining essential reserves with little regard for the life situation of non-human others? Should certain principles of distributive and territorial justice, claims of occupancy, freedom of movement, respect, etc., be extended to include non-human nature? In recent months, Europe has begun to explore many of these concerns, noting the trauma experiences of COVID-19 and their interconnection with deepening ecological and health problems as a stimulus to action. This paper notes the relevance of these crisis experiences in moving political debate on the loss of biological diversity forward, prompting a need to extend normative horizons of the common good to include more biologically diverse communities

Reconfiguring the Contours of Statehood and the Rights of Peoples of Disappearing States in the Age of Global Climate Change

Many of the elements that have traditionally supported state level normative self-organization, most notably territory, are being actively undermined by rising sea levels, flooding, desertification, amongst other climate change effects. As more and more states come to be redefined as “disappearing”, that is, states losing their territories to the natural environment through no specific fault of their own, a question arises as to how displaced communities will be assisted in their desire (and right) to continue to practice principles of self-determination and self-government? What is clear is that the international community can no longer continue with the fiction of a unified or unchanging model of the liberal democratic state. Instead, alternative ontological models of sovereign community are required, as is a re-imagining of how statehood might be re-constituted in the future in response to deepening ecological problems. The international community must now begin to address the immanent nature of threats posed to disappearing states and consider how a model of statehood that does not privilege territory as a fixed component of state identity could be operationalized. This paper considers how a democratic reform of statehood might proceed and resettlement agreements for displaced communities determined. The transition to an era of peaceful sovereign relations under deteriorating global climate conditions and growing natural resource scarcity, it argues, will require a significant extension of established traditions of democratic compromise, human rights solidarity and cosmopolitan justice

Rainbows over the worlds public health : determinants of health models in the past, present, and future

The need to visualise the complexity of the determinants of population health and their interactions inspired the development of the rainbow model. In this commentary we chronicle how variations of this model have emerged, including the initial models of Haglund and Svanstrom (1982), Dahlgren and Whitehead (1991), and the ostgota model (2014), and we illustrate how these models have been influential in both public health and beyond. All these models have strong Nordic connections and are thus an important Nordic contribution to public health. Further, these models have underpinned and facilitated other examples of Nordic leadership in public health, including practical efforts to address health inequalities and design new health policy approaches. Apart from documenting the emergence of rainbow models and their wide range of contemporary uses, we examine a range of criticisms levelled at these models - including limitations in methodological development and in scope. We propose the time is ripe for an updated generic determinants of health model, one that elucidates and preserves the core value in older models, while recognising the developments that have occurred over the past decades in our understanding of the determinants of health. We conclude with an example of a generic model that fulfills the general purposes of a determinants of health model while maintaining the necessary scope for further adjustments to be made in the future, as well as adjustments to location or context-specific purposes, in education, research, health promotion and beyond