scholarly journals Cascading Crises: Society in the Age of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110031
Author(s):  
Laura Robinson ◽  
Jeremy Schulz ◽  
Christopher Ball ◽  
Cara Chiaraluce ◽  
Matías Dodel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Organizational Response ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Adaptive Potential ◽  
Third Order ◽  
Long Tail ◽  
Death Risk ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Fear And Anxiety

The tsunami of change triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed society in a series of cascading crises. Unlike disasters that are more temporarily and spatially bounded, the pandemic has continued to expand across time and space for over a year, leaving an unusually broad range of second-order and third-order harms in its wake. Globally, the unusual conditions of the pandemic—unlike other crises—have impacted almost every facet of our lives. The pandemic has deepened existing inequalities and created new vulnerabilities related to social isolation, incarceration, involuntary exclusion from the labor market, diminished economic opportunity, life-and-death risk in the workplace, and a host of emergent digital, emotional, and economic divides. In tandem, many less advantaged individuals and groups have suffered disproportionate hardship related to the pandemic in the form of fear and anxiety, exposure to misinformation, and the effects of the politicization of the crisis. Many of these phenomena will have a long tail that we are only beginning to understand. Nonetheless, the research also offers evidence of resilience on several fronts including nimble organizational response, emergent communication practices, spontaneous solidarity, and the power of hope. While we do not know what the post COVID-19 world will look like, the scholarship here tells us that the virus has not exhausted society’s adaptive potential.

Radical Mothering as a Pathway to Liberation

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mai’a Williams
Keyword(s):  
Personal Narratives ◽  
Mortality Rates ◽  
Just World ◽  
Death Risk ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
Afterlife Of Slavery ◽  
Black Infant

I weave several threads in this essay, including the history of obstetrics and traditional Black midwifery, the devastating statistics of Black infant and maternal mortality rates, the experiences of eastern Congolese mama activists, the written and lived testimonies of Black North American mama activists, and my personal narratives to illustrate that the practice of mothering is fundamental to creating co-liberatory revolutionary movements and societies. This essay shows how mama activists, in particular Black mama activists, are taking great risks to their lives in the face of white patriarchal structures and in the midst of the ‘afterlife of slavery’ in order to honour the fallen and create a more just future. It also questions scholar-activists as to how they, whose scholarship is built off of the work of these mama activists, redistribute the life and death risk that mama activists shoulder to create the just world scholar-activists claim to desire.

Revolution, Democratic Retrenchment, and the Middle Class

2020 ◽  
pp. 155-192
Author(s):  
Bryn Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Labor Market ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Opportunity ◽  
Life Chances ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Orange Revolution

This chapter provides a background on Ukraine when it was struggling to consolidate democracy. It examines existing theories that expect human capital formation and a growing middle-class to enhance the autocratic middle-class prospects for democratization. By focusing on the case of Ukraine, it also explores whether dependence on the state for economic opportunities and life chances moderates middle-class demands for democratic institutions. The chapter uses a panel survey spanning the Orange Revolution, which assesses how the distinctive political orientations of different groups within the middle-class affected the nature of protest coalitions during Ukraine's 2004 democratic breakthrough. It makes use of a difference-in-differences design to demonstrate that reliance on the state for economic opportunity caused the political preferences of new labor market entrants to diverge.

Ghosts and Religious Life in Early China

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mu-Chou Poo
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Early China ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Ancient China ◽  
Ghost Stories ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Fear And Anxiety

For modern people, ghost stories are no more than thrilling entertainment. For those living in antiquity, ghosts were far more serious beings, as they could affect the life and death of people and cause endless fear and anxiety. How did ancient societies imagine what ghosts looked like, what they could do, and how people could deal with them? From the vantage point of modernity, what can we learn about an obscure, but no less important aspect of an ancient culture? In this volume, Mu-chou Poo explores the ghosts of ancient China, the ideas that they nurtured, and their role in its culture. His study provides fascinating insights into the interaction between the idea of ghosts and religious activities, literary imagination, and social life devoted to them. Comparing Chinese ghosts with those of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, Poo also offers a wider perspective on the role of ghosts in human history.

Everyone needs to breathe

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 119-138
Author(s):  
Sondra Fraleigh
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Healing Touch ◽  
Verbal Interactions ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Past ◽  
Communication Practices ◽  
Meaning Of Home ◽  
Life Work

This article is written with an eye towards the future and a foot in the past. It is partly autobiographical, and in each of four parts offers reflective somatic practices. The author is sheltering at home, so her thoughts centre on the meaning of home, family and pets. At the same time, she articulates somatic skills to cultivate embodied presence, insightful verbal interactions and healing touch. Her writing invites readers into somatic movement explorations and somatic communication practices through poetry. Life and death, love and war, ground her article. The section on Simbi involves global shadow work through butoh and the healing essence of water. Golden shadows appear as elemental and ecosomatic in Morphic Curiosity, a butoh invitation to site-specific dance. Video links and photographs further embody the work. The final section, Dance back the world, presents somatic witnessing as an extraordinary process of intimate notice and care. Becoming friends with the whole world is an exhortation of Mahatma Gandhi, and the life work of this author. Her article was written before the brutal murder of George Floyd and the international protests that began in America as cries for social and racial justice. Now we have a new imperative for Gandhi’s call, because everyone has a right to breathe.

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