Is Fish Health Food or Poison? Farmed Fish and the Material Production of Un/Healthy Nature*

Abstract: This paper contributes to scholarship on health and environment by focusing on connections between human health and political economy of seafood. The contemporary rise of aquaculture is an effort on the part of the seafood industry to escape the contradictions of capital that create crisis in capture fisheries. Yet intensive aquaculture may also create human health problems that contribute to new crises. Aquaculture practices not only increase production of healthful fish, but also lead to fish burdened with chemical pollutants about which there are a variety of health concerns. These health concerns pose problems for producers who may not be able to sell contaminated seafood. By examining the intertwined biochemical and social processes that produce multiple natures (fish bodies, human bodies and the aquatic environment), the paper shows that concerns about health are not only an outcome of political economic processes, but are also an explanatory factor in these processes.     

‘A dog who I know quite well’: everyday relationships between children and animals

Adult discourses often represent relationships between children and animals as beneficial for children's psycho-social development or as reflecting a ‘natural’ connection between children and animals. In contrast, this paper draws on recent work in sociology and geography where human–animal relationships are seen as socially situated and where conventional constructions of the human–animal boundary are questioned. Focussing on children's own perspectives on their connections with animals, it is argued that these relationships can also be understood within the social and relational context of children's lives. It is argued that this ‘relational’ orientation to children's relationships with animals might significantly enhance our understanding of children's lives and also open up ways of thinking about the place of animals in children's (and adults') social lives.     

A company of women and men: men's recollections of childbirth in medieval England

The events that took place in medieval English birthing chambers were witnessed and assisted by a company of women. Although these events may have been isolated, they did not exist in isolation. Rather, they interacted in complex ways with the lives and activities of the men in the manor hall. This article examines those interactions as they are evidenced in proof-of-age inquests, legal documents that record the recollections of husbands, fathers, and male relatives and neighbors regarding the events surrounding the birth of an heir to crown land. It concludes that even though men rarely entered the birthing chamber, their dynastic interests and social politics routinely penetrated its walls, blurring the boundary between private and public spheres, female and male space.     

Interstate Migration: A Test of Competing Interpretations

This study presents a model of net interstate migration in the United States during the 1970s. Of 5 composite dimensions derived from an exploratory factor analysis of 20 candidate predictors of interstate migration, the greatest predictive power in an ordinary least squares regression analysis is attained by a set of quality-of-life correlates of migration. Composites of fiscal policy and labor relations variables, more controllable by public decisionmakers, are also significant.     

Methodologies for Examining Homelessness and Their Application to a Mandated Statewide Study

Using findings from a federally mandated statewide study of homelessness in the state of Iowa, this paper presents methodologies developed to address various aspects of homeless research, including enumeration of the population, screening for reporting duplications, estimating the annual number of incidents of homelessness, and exploring county-level estimates of homelessness. After implementing an algorithm to eliminate duplicate reporting, and using the baseline unduplicated reported number of homeless persons, a statewide estimate of the number of homeless individuals was derived. Following further adjustments for differences in agency reporting practices and after extrapolating for nonreported time periods, we estimated the number of Unique incidents of homelessness experienced in the state during the year of the study (1997). The policy implications of these findings are discussed.