scholarly journals An intersectionality lens is needed to establish a global view of equity, diversity and inclusion

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rassim Khelifa ◽  
Hayat Mahdjoub
Keyword(s):  
Academic Success ◽  
Global South ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Global Diversity ◽  
Diversity And Inclusion ◽  
Academic Fields ◽  
Global View ◽  
Global North ◽  
Level Of Training

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) have become essential considerations in different academic fields in recent years, attracting an increasing number of voices and perspectives from different groups. While recent contributions have shed light on the barriers faced by some groups, the concept of EDI and implementation of solutions are still in their infancy in ecology and evolution. There is a clear lack of an intersectionality framework that is more inclusive of the global diversity of researchers. As researchers in ecology and evolution from the Global South and Global North with different backgrounds, we recognize the need to present a global view of EDI in order to highlight the role of intersectionality where researchers from Global South are not only impeded by discrimination, but also by other cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic factors that affect their level of training, ultimately reducing their likelihood of reaching leadership positions. We present a simple model of intersectionality that explains the main drivers of the variation in academic success among researchers, and highlight that most of the variation is determined by factors that individuals have no control over (e.g. place of birth, gender, ethnicity). We recommend measures to increase the representation of the global diversity in the field of ecology and evolution in order to collectively solve global societal and environmental issues.

scholarly journals Housing systems in the Global South: The relevance of the ‘social housing’ approach in meeting housing needs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alireza Vaziri Zadeh ◽  
Frank Moulaert ◽  
Stuart Cameron
Keyword(s):  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Social Housing ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Global South ◽  
Housing Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Housing Rights ◽  
Global North ◽  
Housing Needs

This paper addresses the problem of accessing decent and affordable housing in the Global South, where the housing need is, in general, more problematic than in the Global North. The paper first identifies five distinctive characteristics of housing systems in the Global South as compared to those in the Global North. These include: (a) the diverse facets of global financialization; (b) the role of the developmentalist state; (c) the importance of informality; (d) the decisive role of the family; and (e) the rudimentary welfare systems. Given these features, the paper reflects on the concept and practices of social housing, particularly their appropriateness to deal with the housing problem in the Global South. The paper then addresses the question of whether the social housing approach is relevant for solving the contemporary housing needs in the Global South. It argues that social housing, redefined to better encompass the distinctive characteristics of housing systems in the Global South, is indeed a useful policy approach and can play a decisive role in satisfying unmet housing needs. Such an approach needs to take into account the great role of informality and family support systems and develop appropriate funding instruments and modes of institutionalization protecting housing rights and the quality of life.

Ethnographic reflections of the role of Global North volunteers in sport-for-development

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (7) ◽  
pp. 953-974 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Lucas ◽  
Ruth Jeanes
Keyword(s):  
Solomon Islands ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Global South ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Sport For Development ◽  
Colonial Theory ◽  
Global North ◽  
Ethnographic Methodology ◽  
Approach Working

This article critically examines the work undertaken by Global North volunteers in Global South sport-for-development programmes. Whilst existing studies acknowledge the centrality of Northern volunteers to the delivery of sport-for-development programmes in the Global South, there are few detailed explorations of how volunteers approach working in diverse cultural contexts and their impact on local communities. Drawing on an ethnographic methodology and post-colonial theory, the article reflects on the first author’s experiences as an AusAID funded volunteer working as a cricket development officer in the Solomon Islands. In addition to the first author’s fieldnotes and critical reflections, the article draws on interviews conducted with indigenous and expatriate stakeholders involved in the sport-for-development programme. The findings demonstrate the complexities of Global North volunteers’ engagement with sport-for-development. The use of post-colonial theory illustrates the ways in which Global North volunteers can perpetuate neo-colonial initiatives and systems of working that are imposed on Global South communities. The study suggests that volunteers can be very aware of their position but can feel helpless in challenging external agencies to promote more culturally sensitive and localised approaches to development work. Furthermore, the paper indicates the complications of developing localised initiatives, indicating how external agencies, through the Global North volunteer, used indigenous people to create the impression that programmes are locally driven. The paper concludes by examining the ways in which indigenous communities resisted the imposition of a sport-for-development initiative that did not meet their needs.

scholarly journals Geographies of waste: Conceptual vectors from the Global South

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 1044-1063 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nate Millington ◽  
Mary Lawhon
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Global South ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Relational Understanding ◽  
Neoliberal Governance ◽  
Global North ◽  
North And South

Geographies of waste, which include examination of its flows and politics, have demonstrated empirical differences and contrasting approaches to researching waste in the Global North and South. Southern waste geographies have largely focused on case studies of informality and (neoliberal) governance. We draw on Southern theory to argue that this focus can be productively extended through greater consideration of the production of value and the role of materiality and technology in the wastescape. We argue that a relational understanding of multiscalar wastescapes contributes insights into the distribution of costs and benefits as well as what enables and constrains the extraction of value for different actors.

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation has the right prescription for diversity

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 15-17
Keyword(s):  
Executive Leadership ◽  
Leadership Positions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Diversity And Inclusion ◽  
The Us ◽  
Employee Resource Groups ◽  
The Right ◽  
A Company ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – This paper aims to describe the actions that have helped Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation to reach No. 1 in this year’s DiversityInc top 50 companies for diversity. Design/methodology/approach – It examines the roles of the company’s executive diversity and inclusion council, diversity and inclusion councils, the diversity and inclusion department and employee-resource groups. Findings – It reveals that the number of women in top-level jobs at the company has more than doubled in the past five years. Today, women account for more than 50 per cent of executive-leadership positions. Practical implications – It advances the view that getting strategic about diversity and inclusion – and making these elements a natural part of the way a company does business – drives innovation and moves the business and people forward. Social implications – It demonstrates that, as the US workforce becomes more diverse, all companies face the challenge of creating new and better ways of recruiting and retaining talent from all segments of the workforce – and creating an inclusive culture where all perspectives are valued. Originality/value – It highlights the key role of diversity at a US affiliate of a multinational pharmaceutical company.

scholarly journals The Politics of Transnational Advocacy Against Chinese, Indian, and Brazilian Extractive Projects in the Global South

2021 ◽  
pp. 107049652110190
Author(s):  
Leah Shipton ◽  
Peter Dauvergne
Keyword(s):  
Emerging Economies ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Global South ◽  
Transnational Advocacy ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Transnational Advocacy Networks ◽  
Global North ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Cross National

Activists in the global South have been navigating two powerful trends since the mid-1990s: intensifying state repression and rising investment in extractive projects from the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS). In this context, this article explores the underlying forces determining the formation, endurance, and power of BRICS–South transnational advocacy networks (TANs) opposed to BRICS-based corporate extraction in the global South. By analyzing activism against Chinese, Indian, and Brazilian extractive projects in Ecuador, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, respectively, the research reveals the critical importance of domestic politics and civil society characteristics in both the BRICS and host states for shaping BRICS–South TANs, including which groups assume leadership, the extent of cross-national cooperation, and the role of nonprofits headquartered in the global North. The findings uncover core reasons for the variable resiliency and capacity of BRICS–South TANs, opening up new avenues of research and offering valuable insights for activists and policymakers.

scholarly journals The BRICS Countries Grouping: Promise of a New Thematic and Methodological Research Focus in the Social Sciences and the Humanities

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 3-13
Author(s):  
Charl Wolhuter ◽  
Oxana Chigisheva
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Global South ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Brics Countries ◽  
The Social ◽  
Global North ◽  
Science Community

The aim of this research, as part of this Special Issue on the thematic and epistemological foci of social science and humanities research emanating in the BRICS countries, is to investigate and to assess the value of such research— firstly, for the BRICS countries mutually, then for the rest of the Global South as well as for the global humanities and social science community at large. The rationale of this research is that the BRICS countries have come to assume a growing gravitas in the world, not only on strength of geography, demography and economy; but also because of the diversity contained in each of these BRICS countries. These diversities offer opportunities to learn a lot from each other, in addition the rest of the gamut of countries in the Global South as well as the nations of the Global North can benefit much from learning from the experience of the BRICS countries. The research commences with a survey of the most compelling societal trends shaping the 21st Century world, which will form the parameters of the context in which scholarship in the social sciences and humanities are destined to be conducted. The state of scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences and the imperatives of context will be the next topic under discussion. Within this landscape, the potential role of research on BRICS soil is then turned to. The BRICS countries are surveyed, then a conclusion is ventured as to their potential as a fountainhead for social sciences and humanities research.

scholarly journals Avoiding the humanitarian trap: The ‘Nobelization’ of food aid

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Lanika Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Response ◽  
Global South ◽  
Food Aid ◽  
Nobel Peace Prize ◽  
Sustainable Development Goal ◽  
The World ◽  
Global North ◽  
Zero Hunger ◽  
Relief Efforts

Despite the significant role that hunger relief has played in global emergency response efforts throughout much of the last century—notably showcased with the 2015 naming of ‘Zero Hunger’ as the second Sustainable Development Goal, and more recently when the World Food Program was awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize—significant hunger and malnutrition remain. Concerningly, past crises have demonstrated the potential for hunger relief efforts, particularly the provisioning of food aid, to undermine the ability of Global South countries and communities to recovery fully from shocks. This commentary takes a critical look at the role of food aid during extended crises and presents several thoughts for how aid agencies and Global North governments can continue to work toward Zero Hunger while simultaneously supporting Global South economies and cultures.

scholarly journals The geopolitics of South–South infrastructure development: Chinese-financed energy projects in the global South

Urban Studies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (7) ◽  
pp. 1368-1385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giles Mohan ◽  
May Tan-Mullins
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Global South ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Energy Projects ◽  
Elite Level ◽  
Global North ◽  
Chinese Banks

Debates around infrastructure tend to focus on the global North, yet in the global South demand for infrastructure is huge and we see new and emergent actors engaged in finance and construction; China being pre-eminent among them. China’s interests in the global South have grown apace over the past decade, especially in terms of accessing resources and securing infrastructure deals. The role of Chinese banks and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in financing and building the projects reveals a blurring between geopolitical and commercial interests and processes. The article situates China’s entry into the global South as part of a geopolitics that is simultaneously geoeconomic and interrogates these issues through case studies of Chinese-backed projects in Ghana and Cambodia. These projects are spatially and politically complex, with China adopting a range of financing models – often including an element of resource swaps – in which bank finance is critical and marks the Chinese as different from Western financiers. These international deals are secured at the political elite level and so bypass established forms of national governance and accountability in the recipient countries, while the turnkey construction projects remain locally enclaved. The cases also show that wider developmental benefits are limited, with ‘ordinary’ citizens – especially those in the rural areas – gaining relatively little from these major energy projects and the benefits accruing to urban-based elites.

scholarly journals Preservation is Political: Enacting Contributive Justice and Decolonizing Transnational Archival Collaborations

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
T-Kay Sangwand
Keyword(s):  
Academic Libraries ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Global South ◽  
Practical Work ◽  
Archival Studies ◽  
Partner Organization ◽  
Narrative Agency ◽  
Global North ◽  
Archival Practices

This article contributes to critical archival studies discourse and builds upon the theoretical and practical work accomplished under the postcustodial rubric in order to propose an archival framework that is explicitly oriented in the service of justice. Global north/south postcustodial collaborations highlight the ethical and practical obligation of adopting an archival framework that accounts for expanded notions of stewardship and narrative agency. As an archivist based in US academic libraries who works primarily on transnational archival collaborations in the global south, I want to introduce the concept of contributive justice to these postcustodial transnational collaborations because it reframes the role of the partner organization in the global south and acknowledges the agency of all partners (Gomberg 2007). By drawing upon my experiences facilitating transnational archival partnerships between US academic libraries and institutions in Cuba, El Salvador, and Rwanda, I build upon Michelle Caswell’s (2017) suggested actions for dismantling white supremacy within US archives by offering concrete ways archivists can utilize a contributive justice framework to decolonize archival practices (i.e., appraisal, description, access) within transnational partnerships. By offering these examples, we can begin to both imagine and enact a more just and liberatory archival praxis. As Caswell states, ‘through the lens of liberatory archival imaginaries, our work … does not end with the limits of our collection policies, but rather, it is an ongoing process of conceptualizing what we want the future to look like’ (2014a: 51). The stakes are high in the shaping of our collective histories, and we all have the responsibility of envisioning and enacting liberatory archival futures.

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