The Ebb and Flow of Indigenous Rights Recognitions in Conservation Policy

At the 2003 World Parks Congress, diverse conservation actors called for the end of exclusionary approaches to conservation; recognition of customary forms of environmental protection; and restoration of losses to indigenous peoples whose lands were incorporated into protected areas without meaningful consent. A primary means to achieving such reforms has been the development of rights‐based approaches to conservation, expressed at the time as the better integration of human rights into the planning and management of protected areas. This article reviews the suite of publications that followed the 2003 Congress, each identifying the need for rights‐based approaches in conservation. All reviewed materials seek to operationalize human rights into conservation planning, but the review indicates a pattern of support for, then retreat from, and even a possible ‘backlash’ against, indigenous rights. The review also finds important differences in organizations’ ideas about who is responsible for protecting the environment versus who is responsible for protecting human rights. The authors draw from these findings a caution against the subversion of the original intention of rights‐based conservation to definitions that more fully serve conservation organizations’ own ends, based on the presumption that benefits (including rights) from environmental protection will eventually trickle down to people.     

Rethinking the role of the arts in politics: lessons from the Négritude movement

The arts can be a powerful tool for emancipation, community building and political expression. This article makes the argument that artistic and cultural expression should be viewed by politicians and policy makers as an effective form of political engagement and an important feedback loop for understanding the political dissatisfaction of the electorate. It draws on one particular historical example, the Négritude movement, to highlight the value and strength of cultural movements in responding to questions of politics and to draw out lessons for current policy makers in recognising the value of culture in effecting political change. Against a contemporary political and scholarly narrative of disaffected citizenship, this article demonstrates that a lack of trust in a political model does not necessarily demonstrate a disinterested citizenry; rather it can suggest a citizenry who have found new and innovative ways to engage. The Négritude movement provides one such historical example.     

"A wealth of historical interest": the medical artifact collection at the University of Western Ontario

Along with a teaching collection, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, began accepting medical artifacts for a historical museum in the early 1920s, although it never developed into more than an unofficial collection until the 1970s, when it was transformed into the Medical Museum and Archives at the University Hospital. In the 1990s, the artifacts were dispersed among several local institutions. The remaining objects at the university have been now reorganized as the Medical Artifact Collection. While these objects were once used to educate students about the practice and philosophy of medicine, they are now used to teach students about local, medical, Canadian and public history.     

‘To Prostitute the Elements’: Weather Control and Weaponisation by US Department of Defense

The US military has a long and robust history of scientific research programs, often conducted in conjunction with civilian scientists at non-military governmental agencies as well as universities. These programs flourished in the immediate post-Second World War and the early cold war years, as the field of military science expanded to address the sprawling Soviet threat. One area of growth was in atmospheric science, which had already taken off preceding Second World War in conjunction with the growth of air warfare. Advances in meteorology, cloud science and climatology enabled military interests to align with weather forecasters and also agricultural interests, as old ideas about cloud seeding and weather control were revived in the light of new research. The military, largely through the Air Force, advanced a series of projects investigating the potential of weather and climate control, manipulation, and ultimately weaponisation. These programs, which were sometimes linked to US Department of Agriculture programs aimed at improving agricultural production, persisted for decades. Some of the newly developed tools were deployed: local climate manipulation efforts during the Vietnam conflict were aimed at impeding traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, with mixed results. Significant efforts came during the Weather Bureau leadership of Francis W. Reichelderfer, whose papers contain a wealth of information about efforts ranging from cloud seeding to proposals to drop atomic weapons on hurricanes. These papers, along with those of Weather Bureau scientist Harry Wexler, provide a fascinating window to a time when the US military and scientific establishment seemed poised to grasp the levers of power over nature itself. This paper describes these little-studied programs, and situates these efforts within the broader military science programs accompanying the emergence of air warfare, as well as post-war science programs aimed at countering the Soviet challenge.     

The Asaba massacre and the Nigerian civil war: reclaiming hidden history

This article explores the consequences of a massacre of civilians in Asaba, a town on the west bank of the river Niger, during the early stages of the Nigerian civil war. While ethnically Igbo, Asaba was not part of the Igbo-dominated Biafra, remaining part of the ethnically diverse midwest region. In the international memory of the war, the midwest action, which claimed several thousand lives, has been eclipsed by the catastrophic events east of the Niger, after the federal blockade of Biafra. This article sheds new light on the human cost of the war on civilian populations outside Biafra. Drawing on interviews with survivors and their descendants, we describe the killings, pillaging and rapes that followed the arrival of the federal troops, and trace the long-term impact and memory of the physical and human devastation in Asaba on family structure, gender roles, educational opportunities and social structure. We show how the official suppression of the massacres, coupled with Biafran awareness of the events, contributed to the subsequent course of the war, and we suggest that this suppression has left a legacy that perpetuates resentment and has kept ethnic tensions alive to this day.     

Healthy discretion? Breastfeeding and the mutual maintenance of motherhood and public space

Although idealizations of motherhood are ever in flux, specific historical moments can be said to produce distinctive tropes of ‘good’ motherhood that have very real impacts on how women act and conceptualize themselves as mothers. This article examines good motherhood in its current iteration, and how now-common beliefs about breastfeeding are implicated in its construction. Furthermore, it looks at the ways in which idealizations of motherhood discipline the breastfeeding body so that it will fit into public space without disruption. I discuss the contradictory impacts of characterizations of the good mother as they appeared in the pro-breastfeeding dialogs that arose following a 2007 incident in which a mother was asked to cover herself up while nursing in a Kentucky restaurant. I posit that while these characterizations helped to make breastfeeding a more widely accepted public activity, they also had the effect of reifying a very narrow conception of what it means to be a good mother. I make this claim through an analysis of two common refrains heard in pro-public-breastfeeding arguments: breast milk is exceedingly healthy and mothers should not be persecuted if they nurse discreetly. Although these assertions together are compelling to the general public in that they provide a scientific justification for breastfeeding while at once assuaging fears of discomfort presented by a reproductive act being performed in a public space, I suggest that they also work to discipline women and maintain public-space-as-usual.     

Behavioral Ecology and Archaeology

Behavioral ecology is the study of adaptive behavior in relation to social and environmental circumstances. Analysts working from this perspective hold that the reproductive strategies and decision-making capacities of all living organisms—including humans—are shaped by natural selection. Archaeologists have been using this proposition in the study of past human behavior for more than 30 years. Significant insights on variation in prehistoric human subsistence, life history, social organization, and their respective fossil and archaeological consequences have been among the more important results.