Green grabbing and the dynamics of local-level engagement with neoliberalization in Tanzania's wildlife management areas

This paper analyzes the politics and struggles ongoing within wildlife management areas (WMAs) in Tanzania to discuss the dynamics of neoliberalization of the wildlife sector. We discuss neoliberalization as a new political-economic context within which the ongoing politics of natural resource management are played out, and focus on green grabbing as an expression of these politics. We discuss how local-level actors are engaged in these processes, often in strategic ways, to negotiate their roles within WMAs and address green grabbing by the state. Secondly, we discuss an example of the politics of land control and local-level actors’ enactment of accumulation by dispossession within a WMA.     

Legitimacy beyond the state: institutional purposes and contextual constraints

ABSTRACT

The essays collected in this special issue explore what legitimacy means for actors and institutions that do not function like traditional states but nevertheless wield significant power in the global realm. They are connected by the idea that the specific purposes of non-state actors and the contexts in which they operate shape what it means for them to be legitimate and so shape the standards of justification that they have to meet. In this introduction, we develop this guiding methodology further and show how the special issue’s individual contributions apply it to their cases. In the first section, we provide a sketch of our purpose-dependent theory of legitimacy beyond the state. We then highlight two features of the institutional context beyond the state that set it apart from the domestic case: problems of feasibility and the structure of international law.     

The use of geographic information systems as a forensic tool to investigate sources of marine mammal entanglement in fisheries

Commercial fisheries represent a significant anthropogenic threat to marine mammal survival. Causes of marine mammal mortality are commonly determined by detailed necropsies of stranded carcasses. Gross evidence of entanglement in a fishery might include gear attached to the body, internal indications of asphyxiation and trauma, or gear markings on the epidermis. As gear is often fishery-specific, wound patterns on the epidermis that are created by entanglements in fishing gear may serve to identify possible sources of mortality. For this study, tools within the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) ArcMap GIS software were used to create maps that outline impressions that fishing gear can leave on the epidermis of entangled marine mammals. These maps can subsequently be used to identify possible sources of fishery entanglement for the many marine mammals that wash ashore without gear attached to their carcass. Entanglement wound patterns can be visually compared with fishing gear characteristics; however, differences in scale and image quality can introduce subjectivity that might hinder source identification. The technique described herein provides an objective way to outline the unique characteristics of fishing gear and their associated wounds on entangled marine mammals. Additionally, spatial relationships are preserved as the maps are adjusted to varying scales. Whereas the initial protocol required time-consuming digitization of the outline and visual determination of the pattern interface, this new, semiautomated technique saves analyst effort and minimizes error.     

Accessing donor conception information in Australia: a call for retrospective access

Donor conception practices in Australia have left thousands of donor-conceived people, their families and gamete donors bereft of information. The lack of a nationally timeline-consistent approach to information access has driven these people to seek support and information from self-help groups, online communities and even their own DNA. This article examines the historical perspective of information access and how progress is being made through lobbying and public awareness. To determine the current status of information availability, fertility clinics around Australia were surveyed. It is argued that current practices continue to fail donor-conceived people, their families and gamete donors, and that until all donor offspring are afforded the right to know their genetic family history, they will continue to suffer discrimination, and potentially risk psychological and physical trauma.     

The role of beliefs and trait aggression in prison bullying among young offenders

This study aimed to explore the characteristics of those involved in bullying, including trait aggression, beliefs, interpretation of potential threat and responses to aggression. Three hundred and thirteen young adult male offenders completed three measures; the Direct and Indirect Prisoner Behaviour Checklist, the Aggression Questionnaire, and the Threat Appraisal of Behaviour measure. Pure bullies and bully-victims were predicted to have higher trait aggression scores, and to be more likely to endorse beliefs supportive of aggression than other groups. Bully-victims were predicted to have higher levels of trait hostility and higher levels of fear than pure bullies. The results demonstrated that both bully groups had higher trait aggression scores, with bully-victims having higher scores on the hostility subscale than pure bullies or those not involved. Bully-victims viewed bullying as more of a threat and were more fearful of it than pure bullies and they were also more likely to endorse both aggressive and avoidant coping responses whereas pure bullies were more likely to endorse aggressive responding. Findings highlight differences between the two bully groups and offers an outline of the underpinning causes of bullying for each group.