scholarly journals Climate Crises and the Creation of ‘Undeserving’ Victims

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
The West ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Climate Crisis

This paper explores how advanced liberal democracies respond to climate migrants in ways that reflect colonial logics and practices. With a focus on the Pacific, it reflects on three constructions of climate crisis victims. First, as savages—those incapable of adapting or thriving under catastrophic environmental threats and who need to be saved by ‘the West’. Secondly, as threats—the hordes who will threaten white civilization and who must be sorted, excluded, detained and deported. Thirdly, as ‘non-ideal’ victims—those undeserving of full legal protections but who may survive under hostile conditions in receiving states. These political and policy responses create systemic harms and injustice for those who struggle under or must flee environmental degradation, and they function to ensure that those most to blame for climate crises are prioritized as having least responsibility to take action. The paper concludes with consideration of socially just responses to those most affected from climate harms.

scholarly journals Climate Crises and the Creation of ‘Undeserving’ Victims

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
The West ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Climate Crisis

This paper explores how advanced liberal democracies respond to climate migrants in ways that reflect colonial logics and practices. With a focus on the Pacific, it reflects on three constructions of climate crisis victims. First, as savages—those incapable of adapting or thriving under catastrophic environmental threats and who need to be saved by ‘the West’. Secondly, as threats—the hordes who will threaten white civilization and who must be sorted, excluded, detained and deported. Thirdly, as ‘non-ideal’ victims—those undeserving of full legal protections but who may survive under hostile conditions in receiving states. These political and policy responses create systemic harms and injustice for those who struggle under or must flee environmental degradation, and they function to ensure that those most to blame for climate crises are prioritized as having least responsibility to take action. The paper concludes with consideration of socially just responses to those most affected from climate harms.

scholarly journals Climate Crises and the Creation of ‘Undeserving’ Victims

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 144
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
The West ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Climate Crisis

This paper explores how advanced liberal democracies respond to climate migrants in ways that reflect colonial logics and practices. With a focus on the Pacific, it reflects on three constructions of climate crisis victims. First, as savages—those incapable of adapting or thriving under catastrophic environmental threats and who need to be saved by ‘the West’. Secondly, as threats—the hordes who will threaten white civilization and who must be sorted, excluded, detained and deported. Thirdly, as ‘non-ideal’ victims—those undeserving of full legal protections but who may survive under hostile conditions in receiving states. These political and policy responses create systemic harms and injustice for those who struggle under or must flee environmental degradation, and they function to ensure that those most to blame for climate crises are prioritized as having least responsibility to take action. The paper concludes with consideration of socially just responses to those most affected from climate harms.

THE POLITICS OF ENLIGHTENMENT: FROM PETER GAY TO JONATHAN ISRAEL

2012 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 785-805 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNELIEN de DIJN
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
The West ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Jonathan Israel ◽  
Anglophone World

ABSTRACTAccording to the textbook version of history, the Enlightenment played a crucial role in the creation of the modern, liberal democracies of the West. Ever since this view – which we might describe as the modernization thesis – was first formulated by Peter Gay, it has been repeatedly criticized as misguided: a myth. Yet, as this paper shows, it continues to survive in postwar historiography, in particular in the Anglophone world. Indeed, Gay's most important and influential successors – historians such as Robert Darnton and Roy Porter – all ended up defending the idea that the Enlightenment was a major force in the creation of modern democratic values and institutions. More recently, Jonathan Israel's trilogy on the Enlightenment has revived the modernization thesis, albeit in a dramatic new form. Yet, even Israel's work, as its critical reception highlights, does not convincingly demonstrate that the Enlightenment, as an intellectual movement, contributed in any meaningful way to the creation of modern political culture. This conclusion raises a new question: if the Enlightenment did not create our modern democracies, then what did it do? In answer to that question, this paper suggests that we should take more seriously the writings of enlightened monarchists like Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger. Studying the Enlightenment might not allow us to understand why democratic political culture came into being. But, as Boulanger's work underscores, it might throw light on an equally important problem: why democracy came so late in the day.

Racism and Nationalism in the Creation of Costa Rica's Pacific Coast Banana Enclave

2000 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald N. Harpelle
Keyword(s):  
Costa Rica ◽  
Pacific Coast ◽  
West Indian ◽  
West Indians ◽  
Immigrant Community ◽  
The West ◽  
United Fruit Company ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Government

The creation of the new banana enclave on Costa Rica's Pacific coast in the 1920s marks a significant watershed in the social and political history of race relations in the country. The culminating event in what was a lengthy battle over the composition of the workforce on the new plantations was the signing of the 1934 banana contract between the government of Costa Rica and the United Fruit Company. In addition to allowing for the continued growth of the industry in Costa Rica, the agreement took aim at the West Indian immigrant by prohibiting “people of colour” from working for United Fruit on the Pacific coast. Subsequent to the agreement, the state made a conscious effort to force the integration of the West Indian community. The government closed English schools, pushed farmers off their land, and deported West Indians in order to purge the province of Limón of people who were not citizens, but who belonged to a well-established immigrant community. As a result, resident West Indians were forced to re-examine their relationship with the country and they engaged in a protracted struggle to overcome heightened levels of discrimination.

scholarly journals Myśleć przez morze. Sztrandowanie i inne metafory, w poszukiwaniu poznawczych alternatyw

2021 ◽  
pp. 245-267
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Owczarska
Keyword(s):  
Fresh Water ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Impossible World ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Climate Crisis

Thinking Through the Sea. Stranding and Other Metaphors, in Search of Cognitive Alternatives In this article, I would like to consider the comparison of stranding to landcentric cognitive processes that translate into the creation of an impossible world – devoid of water and its potentials, rhythms and cycles immersed in it. I will illustrate this with examples of fresh water and sea hydro-policies (including nuclear trials in the Pacific) and will explore cognitive and activist alternatives proposed by the Polynesian sailors and navigators. I will also use two ambiguous metaphors of a ship and a Polynesian voyaging canoe as an opening for different narrations of the planets’ future in the climate crisis.

Growing Coconut Palms in the Pacific Islands: Colliding Knowledge and Values

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith A. Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Coconut Oil ◽  
Tropical Pacific ◽  
Experiential Knowledge ◽  
The West ◽  
Passive Resistance ◽  
The People ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Tropical Pacific

Coconuts provided commodities for the West in the form of coconut oil and copra. Once colonial governments established control of the tropical Pacific Islands, they needed revenue so urged European settlers to establish coconut plantations. For some decades most copra came from Indigenous growers. Administrations constantly urged the people to thin old groves and plant new ones like plantations, in grid patterns, regularly spaced and weeded. Local growers were instructed to collect all fallen coconuts for copra from their groves. For half a century, the administrations’ requirements met with Indigenous passive resistance. This paper examines the underlying reasons for this, elucidating Indigenous ecological and social values, based on experiential knowledge, knowledge that clashed with Western scientific values.

Global E-Waste Management and Second-Hand Consumption in the Third World: Substandard Context and Tokunbo Phenomenon in Nigeria

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
New Products ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Environmental Standards ◽  
The West ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
The Public ◽  
Standards And Regulations ◽  
The Third World ◽  
National Environmental

The world is technologically advancing, but the management of resultant waste, commonly known as e-waste, is also becoming very challenging. Of major concern is the incessant flow of this waste into the developing world where they assume secondhand value in spite of the associated environmental threats. This study adopts the qualitative approach to examine this phenomenon in Nigeria. The study reveals that aside from being cheaper than the new products, second-hand goods are usually preferred to the new products due to the substandard nature of most new electronics largely imported from Asia (especially China). The tag of Tokunbo or ‘imported from the West’ associated with second-hand goods imported from developed countries makes them more preferable to the public relative to new electronics imported from China, disparagingly termed Chinco. Yet both the second-hand electronics that are socially appreciated as Tokunbo and the substandard new electronics imported into Nigeria together render the country a huge recipient of goods that soon collapse and swell the e-waste heap in the country. This situation may be mitigated through strengthening the Standards Organisation of Nigeria and the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, and also by sensitizing Nigerians on the dangers inherent in e-wastes.

The New Islamic State

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhad Khosrokhavar
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
The West ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

The creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) changed the nature of jihadism worldwide. For a few years (2014–2017) it exemplified the destructive capacity of jihadism and created a new utopia aimed at restoring the past greatness and glory of the former caliphate. It also attracted tens of thousands of young wannabe combatants of faith (mujahids, those who make jihad) toward Syria and Iraq from more than 100 countries. Its utopia was dual: not only re-creating the caliphate that would spread Islam all over the world but also creating a cohesive, imagined community (the neo-umma) that would restore patriarchal family and put an end to the crisis of modern society through an inflexible interpretation of shari‘a (Islamic laws and commandments). To achieve these goals, ISIS diversified its approach. It focused, in the West, on the rancor of the Muslim migrants’ sons and daughters, on exoticism, and on an imaginary dream world and, in the Middle East, on tribes and the Sunni/Shi‘a divide, particularly in the Iraqi and Syrian societies.

scholarly journals Natural Constraints to Cultural Relativism Example: Ricci’s Pacific-Centered World Maps

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-397
Author(s):  
Elmar Holenstein
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Canary Islands ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Central State ◽  
The West ◽  
Gestalt Principles ◽  
Matteo Ricci ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Made In

AbstractNot everything that is logically possible and technically feasible is also natural, for example, placing China in the exact center of a world map. Such a map would not correspond to the laws of perception.Matteo Ricci, who was the first to create Chinese world maps on which the Americas were depicted, had to choose between two ideals, between a world map that obeys the gestalt principles of perception and a world map with the “Central State” China in its center. The first ideal mattered more to him than the second, although he took the latter into account as well. The result was a Pacific-centered map.Since we live on a sphere, what we perceive to be in the East and in the West depends on our location. It is therefore natural that in East Asia, world maps show America in the East and not – as in Europe – in the West. This was the argument underlying Ricci’s creation of Pacific-centered maps, and not the intention of depicting China as close to the center of the map as possible.It is only in East Asia that Ricci was the first to create Pacific-centered maps. World maps with the Pacific in the midfield were made in Europe before Ricci, motivated by the traditional unidirectional numbering of the meridians (0°–360°) from West to East starting with the Atlantic Insulae Fortunatae (Canary Islands).

Possible Transoceanic Rafting of Lepas Spp. on an Unopened Plastic Bottle of Chinese Origin Washed Ashore in Victoria, Australia

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-90
Author(s):  
Alexander Cooke ◽  
Huseyin Sumer
Keyword(s):  
Vibrio Parahaemolyticus ◽  
Vibrio Alginolyticus ◽  
Marine Debris ◽  
First Report ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
Plastic Bottle ◽  
Chinese Origin ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Goose Barnacle ◽  
Small Colony

Floating marine debris and litter act as a vector transporting various species across long distances. The present study reports possible transoceanic rafting of a small colony of barnacles on an unopened plastic bottle of Chinese origin found washed ashore on the Ninety Mile Beach in Victoria, Australia. The crustaceans attached were identified to be the goose barnacle Lepas pectinata. Based on the number and size of the colony the marine pollutant was estimated to adrift for several months. We hypothesised the origin of the flotsam, especially the barnacles and how it made its way from the Pacific to be washed ashore in Australia. Furthermore, we identified two types of microbes, Vibrio alginolyticus and Vibrio parahaemolyticus, associated with the Lepas pectinata growing on the bottle. This study appears to be the first report of possible transoceanic rafting on unused plastic pollutants and highlights the potential environmental threats caused by plastic.

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