Suchergebnisse

In the past several decades under a growing influence of ecological modernisation, various assumed 'win-win' approaches to protected area conservation and poverty alleviation have been introduced all over the world, especially in resource-rich developing countries. Yet protected area conservation is an inherently political process, and the goals are often not achieved. There are concerns about competing social outcomes, as well as debates over contrary epistemologies. Drawing on a constructivist and critical research approach, I discuss the politics of protected area conservation in South Africa, with a focus on social justice. I do this through an analysis of conflicts over conservation space in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park (IWP) in northern KwaZulu-Natal. The IWP is a 'conservation for development' project and UNESCO World Heritage site, managed by the iSimangaliso Wetland Park Authority (IWPA) on behalf of the state. The IWPA seeks to combine the conservation of World Heritage with poverty alleviation and local economic development, through private eco-tourism. My theoretical approach starts off with a view of protected areas as spatial phenomena. I tackle the analysis with inspiration from Henri Lefebvre's theory on the production of space. Through an examination of top-down political economic processes, I ask whether conflicts over conservation space arise because of conflicting norms that underlie conservation in protected areas. I interrogate the ways in which conservation influences the freedom, or capabilities, of local users and inhabitants, to achieve 'beings' and 'doings' (Sen 1999), according to their values and norms. Examining bottom-up initiatives from local actors, I focus on reactions to the enclosure of conservation space, in terms of everyday life, agency and resistance. The findings of my research show that global and national norms of protected area conservation that are imposed upon local lived space, have negative consequences for the freedom of local inhabitants. Enclosure in the IWP plays out in two ways: Firstly, the proclamation of the park by the state has resulted in the consolidation of previously disparate areas of land, into one protected and contested area. Secondly, institutional enclosure has been reinforced through a strengthened legal framework for conservation – and a global impetus for the conservation of World Heritage. There have been both civil and criminal cases taken against conservation transgressors in the IWP. Ultimately, local inhabitants have been alienated from land, as well as from management practices in the IWP. This juxtaposes efforts to restore local land and resource rights against national and global interest in conservation. The implementation of global conservation through market mechanisms is particularly problematic where there is structural inequality with historical roots, such as in South Africa. Taking a view of protected areas as spatial phenomena allows a nuanced recognition of the relationship between land, the environment and political rights, an important theme in the emerging field of Sustainability Science. Although developed in a South African context, the analytical framework is transferrable to cases elsewhere in the world.

In May 2013, Minnesota passed the "Child Victims Act" which allowed victims of child sexual abuse a three-year window to report their abuse, regardless of when the abuse occurred ("Minnesota Child Victims Act," 2015). Since this legislation was enacted, hundreds of childhood victims of clergy sexual abuse have come forward within the state of Minnesota. Furthermore, numerous lawsuits have occurred, which have required dioceses across the state to release the names and personnel files of priests credibly accused of child sexual abuse. This exploratory study focuses on disclosures by examining five personnel files of credibly accused priests. The research questions guiding this study include: 1) What variables are available for examination within each priest file? 2) What are the characteristics of priests credibly accused of child sexual abuse? 3) What policy implications do these findings have for the Catholic Church, offenders and victims? Based on the analysis of these five personnel files, 166 variables were identified including the priest's personal history, parish and assignment history at the time of the sexual abuse allegation, sexual abuse allegation(s), treatment history and community and church response. The findings from the univariate analysis of these variables provide suggestions for future studies and policies centered on youth school systems, seminary schools, child sexual abuse reporting procedures, investigation strategies and treatment programs.

The article documents the case of South Africa's struggle to reconcile racially based poverty, a legacy of apartheid, and attempts to conserve the country's unique and important biodiversity. We present an analysis of KwaDapha, a small village in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park in northern KwaZulu-Natal, a protected area and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in terms of the capability approach. Despite South Africa's strong human rights orientation, we show that the freedom, or agency, of local users and inhabitants to achieve doings and beings according to their own values and norms, is constrained by state-led conservation management at KwaDapha. We suggest that the intellectual cause of this failure might lie in the conflation of two distinct concepts: human rights and the capability approach, in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park's predominantly market-based operationalization of sustainable development.

This paper analyses the participation of women as primary providers, users and managers of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) at household level in Tongogara Refugee Camp (TRC), in Zimbabwe. The study argues that the participation of women is essential for the success of WASH projects and for programme sustainability, but the patriarchal nature of the projects has left most women at the periphery of the planning process. Informed by a feminist political ecology (FPE) approach, the study utilises a qualitative methodology in which data were gathered through 68 interviews, five key informant interviews, eight Focus Group Discussions, observations and a desk review. The research findings show gaps in women's access, use and control of WASH facilities. Despite their vast knowledge in water management, women still bear the brunt of water shortages and struggle for power. The study concludes that women still grapple with crises of access, use and control of WASH facilities in TRC. Improving access and availability of WASH facilities will reduce incidences of gender-based violence and the burden of WASH shortages on women in TRC.

Inspite of the significant progress registered in positioning gender equality issues more centrally within programming, debates about gender mainstreaming perseveres. This paper focuses on refugee women's experiences in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) projects in Tongogara Refugee Camp (TRC) in Zimbabwe. The study posits that the age, gender and diversity mainstreaming (AGDM) policy in WASH projects at TRC meant to empower women, is regarded by the male counterparts as a threat to their authority and power. Guided by a feminist political ecology (FPE) theoretical framework, this qualitative research utilised a case study method with sixty-eight interviews, five indepth interviews and eight focus group discussions (FGD) to gather data. The findings show that the imposition of a top-down approach to the implementation of the AGDM policy guidelines on the refugee community has resulted in the increase of domestic violence, sexual and gender based based violence (SGBV), divisions in families as well as resentment of the AGDM policy by some men for promoting gender equality. The research concluded that the implementation of the AGDM in WASH activities is an imposition from above without input from the refugee population, particularly the refugee population.

AbstractEpisodic memory involves binding together what‐where‐when associations. In three experiments, we tested the development of memory for such contextual associations in a naturalistic setting. Children searched for toys in two rooms with two different experimenters; each room contained two identical sets of four containers, but arranged differently. A distinct toy was hidden in a distinct container in each room. In Experiment 1, which involved children between 15 and 26 months who were prompted with a very explicit cue (a part of the hidden toy), we found a marked shift in performance with age: while 15‐ to 20‐month‐olds concentrated their searches on the two containers that sometimes contained toys, they did not distinguish between them according to context, but 21–26‐month‐olds did. However, surprisingly, without toy cues, even the youngest children showed a fragile ability to disambiguate the two containers by room context. In Experiment 2, we tested 34‐ to 40‐month‐olds and 64‐ to 72‐month‐olds without toy cues. The 5‐year‐olds were nearly perfect, and the 3‐year‐olds showed a significant preference for the correct container given only the context. In Experiment 3, we filled in the age range, and also investigated the effects of the use of labels (i.e. names of experimenters and rooms) and of familiarization time, in groups of 34‐ to 40‐month‐olds, 42‐ to 48‐month‐olds, and 50‐ to 56‐month‐olds. Neither labels nor familiarization time had an effect. Across experiments, there was regular age‐related improvement in context‐based memory. Overall, the results suggest that children's episodic memory may undergo an early qualitative change, yet to be precisely characterized, and that continuing increments in the use of contextual cues occur throughout the preschool period. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkwEFw0UEz4&list=PLwxXcOKHPC0llAPVcJyW4EtzlA934A2Rz&index=1