Obligations to the FutureFreedom is considered one of America’s most cherished values. Most Americans agree that freedom requires order, justice, security, opportunity, fairness, absence of harm, absence of undue interference, and a variety of rights. But

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-69
Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Eppard ◽  
Erik Nelson ◽  
Cynthia Cox ◽  
Eduoardo Bonilla-Silva
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Intergenerational Transmission ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Concentrated Disadvantage ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Elected Representatives

Freedom is considered one of America’s most cherished values. Most Americans agree that freedom requires order, justice, security, opportunity, fairness, absence of harm, absence of undue interference, and a variety of rights. But while Americans may agree on these things in broad, abstract terms, they are often divided over their precise definitions. In this article, the authors emphasize how a variety of societal problems—including climate change, racial inequality, poverty and economic inequality, concentrated disadvantage, intergenerational transmission of privilege and disadvantage, and the undermining of truth and expertise—are issues of freedom. The authors discuss the connection between these issues and freedom, and the need to demand action from elected representatives in order to enact true freedom for all Americans.

Contrite Modernity, Contrite Catholicism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Dillon
Keyword(s):  
Economic Inequality ◽  
American Catholicism ◽  
Empirical Context ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Contemporary Catholicism ◽  
The Church ◽  
Societal Role

This chapter explains the book’s objective in probing how contemporary Catholicism grapples with the challenge of maintaining relevance amid increased secularization. It discusses the theoretical and empirical context for the book’s inquiry and its anchoring in American Catholicism and society. The chapter explains why Jurgen Habermas’s construct of contrite modernity opens up new lines of dialogue and action for the Church in light of contemporary societal problems of economic inequality and related ills, and it outlines what is entailed in postsecular expectations of reflexive dialogue between moderate religious and secular actors. It also discusses the book’s working assumption that the postsecular expectations Habermas outlines for religious–secular engagement, including issues of language and authority, are the same expectations required of Catholicism as it negotiates both its public societal role and the array of doctrinal issues of particular relevance to Catholics. The chapter also briefly introduces the data and subsequent chapters.

Vibration, Difference, and Solidarity in the Anthropocene

Resonance ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 218-241
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Chung
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Sound Studies ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
New Materialism ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Departure Point ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Black Skin

Taking the new materialist and climate change themes of Ashley Fure’s The Force of Things: an Opera for Objects as a departure point, this article examines sound studies’ recent invocations of new materialist philosophy alongside this philosophy's foundational concern toward the Anthropocene ecological crisis. I argue that new materialist sonic thought retraces new materialism’s dubious ethical program by deriving equivalencies of moral standing from logically prior ontological equivalencies of material entities and social actors rooted in their shared capacities to vibrate. Some sonic thought thus amplifies what scholars in Black and Indigenous decolonial critique have exposed as the homogenizing, assimilative character of new materialism’s superficially inclusional and optimistic ontological imaginary, which includes tendencies to obscure the ongoingness of racial inequality and settler-colonial exploitation in favor of theorizing difference as a superfice or illusion. As I argue in a sonic reading of Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, some of new materialism’s favored analytical and ecological terms such as objecthood, vibrationality, and connection to the Earth are also terms through which anti-Blackness, colonial desire, and the universalization of Whiteness have historically been routed. This historical amnesia in new materialism enables its powerfully obfuscating premises. As a result, I argue that new materialist sound studies and philosophy risk amplifying the Anthropocene’s similarly homogenizing rhetorics, which often propound a mythic planetary oneness while concealing racial and colonial climate inequities. If sound studies and the sonic arts are to have illuminating perspectives on the Anthropocene, they must oppose rather than affirm its homogenizing logics.

4. How religion has changed

2020 ◽  
pp. 66-90
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Tweed
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The Past ◽  
Religious Dimensions ◽  
Interreligious Violence

“How religion has changed,” looks at how the past shapes the present, and how responsible citizenship today requires some sense of history. Too often public discussions of the religious dimensions of policy issues either overlook the past or highlight recent years. But this shortened perspective makes it difficult to see what is new and what is not—and which problems, like climate change, economic inequality, and interreligious violence, are entangled in a longer past. Religion emerged long ago and has played a role in some of the big lifeway transitions—from foraging to farming to factories. There are four altered ways of imagining (new metaphors), making (new technologies), performing (new rituals), and gathering (new communities)—and the with these, there are challenges that accompanied each new religious habitat.

A Lighter Shade of Brown? Racial Formation and Gentrification in Latino Los Angeles

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfredo Huante
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Racial Formation ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Racial Ideologies ◽  
Boyle Heights

Abstract Conventional gentrification literature has meaningfully demonstrated how economic inequality is perpetuated in urban settings, but there has been a limited understanding of how racial inequality is maintained. Drawing from participant observation, interviews, and digital ethnography in the barrio of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles that were collected over five years, this study examines how gentrification functions as a racial project and supports new forms of racialization to maintain uneven development along racial lines. Examining the ways that racial formation processes unfurl at the local scale expands conventional understanding of racial formation theory and practice while, simultaneously, illustrating the centrality of place in race-making. This study finds new race and class formations are developed by casting the barrio itself and significant portions of the Mexican American population as “honorary white.” Despite colorblind and post-racial ideologies espoused in majority-minority cities like Los Angeles, this landscape fostered emerging racial formations alongside gentrification processes which have increased racial, political, and economic inequality.

Nature-Based Solutions in Tourism: A Review of the Literature and Conceptualization

2019 ◽  
pp. 109634801989005
Author(s):  
Panchapakesan Padma ◽  
Sundari Ramakrishna ◽  
S. Mostafa Rasoolimanesh
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Poverty Alleviation ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Environment Friendly ◽  
Innovative Solutions ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
Tourism And Hospitality ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Scientific Fields

“Nature based solutions” are innovative solutions, which are inspired from nature, and applied to contemporary societal problems such as climate change, overtourism, poverty alleviation, and so on. The research on “nature-based solutions” in tourism is rudimentary and the main objective of this study is to identify and conceptualize the nature-based solutions in tourism. For this purpose, a hybrid literature review has been conducted in the scientific fields of tourism and hospitality as well as agriculture, building sector, and urban planning. An examination of the characteristics of the nature-based solutions have led to its conceptualization based on six constituent dimensions such as empowerment of stakeholders, monitoring the state of natural environment, economic development of residents, adoption of environment-friendly solutions, and changing the mind-set of stakeholders. Finally, limitations of the current study have been identified and some recommendations for further research have been provided.

scholarly journals Are citizen juries and assemblies on climate change driving democratic climate policymaking? An exploration of two case studies in the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Wells ◽  
Candice Howarth ◽  
Lina I. Brand-Correa
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Elected Representatives ◽  
The Impact

Abstract In light of increasing pressure to deliver climate action targets, and the growing role of citizens in raising the importance of the issue, deliberative democratic processes (e.g. Citizen Juries and Citizen Assemblies) on climate change are increasingly being used to provide a voice to citizens in climate change decision-making. Through a comparative case study of two processes that ran in the UK in 2019 (the Leeds Climate Change Citizens’ Jury and the Oxford Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change), this paper investigates how far Citizen Assemblies and Juries on climate change are increasing citizen engagement on climate change and creating more citizen-centred climate policy-making. Interviews were conducted with policy-makers, councillors, professional facilitators and others involved in running these processes to assess motivations for conducting these, their structure and the impact and influence they had. The findings suggest the impact of these processes is not uniform: they have an indirect impact on policymaking by creating momentum around climate action and supporting the introduction of pre-planned or pre-existing policies rather than a direct impact by being truly being citizen-centred policymaking processes or conducive to new climate policy. We conclude with reflections on how these processes give elected representatives a public mandate on climate change, that they help to identify more nuanced and in-depth public opinions in a fair and informed way, yet it can be challenging to embed citizen juries and assemblies in wider democratic processes.

scholarly journals THE PLACE OF AN ETHICS OF SOLIDARITY IN MITIGATING THE PROBLEM OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

2020 ◽  
pp. 182-192
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Illegal Migration ◽  
The World ◽  
Theoretical Frame ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Failing States

Sub-Saharan Africa like some other parts of the world is plagued by myriads of problems such as environmental degradation, climate change, illegal migration, human trafficking, terrorism, resources conflicts, bad and inept leadership, failing states, armed banditry, drug smuggling, youth restiveness, unemployment, etc. One of these problems, unemployment, has led to the devastation of many human lives and equally made some persons to live in degrading manner that affect environmental resources. Unemployment is not simply about statistics or numbers but about actual human lives who are holders of rights and dignity. Unemployment can impede the exercise of human rights and prevent people from living meaningful lives. In spite of the region’s enormous natural resources and human capital unemployment remains drastically unabated. Why is this situation so? This situation is problematized here. Consequently, this paper critically and analytically examines this problem of unemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa in the light of an ethics of solidarity. The paper hermeneutically interprets the concepts involved in the study. The grave reasons for unemployment in the region will be examined with likely solutions. Besides these possible solutions, the paper sees the issue as also bordering on ethical realities. Many of the factors that causes employment borders on human behaviours and morality. There are ethical dimensions to the issue then. This is why the paper takes the vantage point of an ethics of solidarity to argue for an additional solution to the problem. This is equally the theoretical frame from which the problem of unemployment is examined. Living in solidarity makes individuals to easily collaborate and overcome societal problems like unemployment. The paper finds that unemployment is a pervasive problem in the sub-continent and is causing grave consequences for both human lives and the environment. The paper concludes that an ethics of solidarity can help in mitigating the problem of unemployment in the sub-continent. And that when this is done it will help to create a happier and peaceful sub-continent.

scholarly journals Governance Arrangements for Adaptation to Climate Change

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catrien Termeer ◽  
Arwin van Buuren ◽  
Art Dewulf ◽  
Dave Huitema ◽  
Heleen Mees ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Science Policy Interface ◽  
Time Specific ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
Governance Arrangements

Adaptation to climate change is not only a technical issue; above all, it is a matter of governance. Governance is more than government and includes the totality of interactions in which public as well as private actors participate, aiming to solve societal problems. Adaptation governance poses some specific, demanding challenges, such as the context of institutional fragmentation, as climate change involves almost all policy domains and governance levels; the persistent uncertainties about the nature and scale of risks and proposed solutions; and the need to make short-term policies based on long-term projections. Furthermore, adaptation is an emerging policy field with, at least for the time being, only weakly defined ambitions, responsibilities, procedures, routines, and solutions. Many scholars have already shown that complex problems, such as adaptation to climate change, cannot be solved in a straightforward way with actions taken by a hierarchic or monocentric form of governance. This raises the question of how to develop governance arrangements that contribute to realizing adaptation options and increasing the adaptive capacity of society. A series of seven basic elements have to be addressed in designing climate adaptation governance arrangements: the framing of the problem, the level(s) at which to act, the alignment across sectoral boundaries, the timing of the policies, the selection of policy instruments, the organization of the science-policy interface, and the most appropriate form of leadership. For each of these elements, this chapter suggests some tentative design principles. In addition to effectiveness and legitimacy, resilience is an important criterion for evaluating these arrangements. The development of governance arrangements is always context- and time-specific, and constrained by the formal and informal rules of existing institutions.

scholarly journals The Great Transition

2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Neizert ◽  
Stephen Spratt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Great Transition ◽  
Tackle Climate Change

Creating a new kind of economy is crucial if we want to tackle climate change and avoid the mounting social problems associated with the rise of economic inequality. The study ‘The Great Transition’ provides the first comprehensive blueprint for building an economy based on stability, sustainability and equality.

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