sex,work, meat: the feminist politics of veganism

Since the publication of The Sexual Politics of Meat in 1990, activist and writer Carol J. Adams (2000 [1990]) has put forth a feminist defence of veganism based on the argument that meat consumption and violence against animals are structurally related to violence against women, and especially to pornography and prostitution. Adams’ work has been influential in the growing fields of animal studies and posthumanism, where her research is frequently cited as the prime example of vegan feminism. However, her particular radical feminist framework, including her anti-pornography and anti-prostitution arguments, are rarely acknowledged or critiqued. This article challenges the premises of Adams’ argument, demonstrating that her version of vegan feminism is based upon an unsubstantiated comparison between violence against women and violence against other-than-human animals, and on the silencing and exclusion of sex workers as subjects. The article contests the limited reading of Adams, and of feminism, offered in some key works in animal studies and posthumanism, at the same time that it recognises the need to challenge the anthropocentrism evident in much feminist theory. By way of alternative approaches to the sexual politics of veganism, the article highlights the interventions of artist and activist Mirha-Soleil Ross, proposing that her situated and embodied commitment to animal rights brings sex worker agency into the story, while resisting simple comparisons among different forms of violence. The concerns raised by Ross overlap in compelling ways with recent research in performance studies and labour history, bringing the question of work and workers, animal and human, to the fore. These studies point towards a potentially more useful framework than that of Adams for understanding the human violence suffered by different species, including those destined to be eaten by people.     

Institutional memory,institutional capacity: narratives of failed biomedical encounters in East Africa

Abstract

This paper focuses on a series of failed medical encounters that took place in East Africa in the 1950s and after, and explores how the organizations involved ? the Kenyan Division of Insect Borne Diseases, the East African Medical Survey, and the Tanzanian National Institute of Medical Research ? chose to document and remember these events. The examples focus on medical encounters characterized by disagreements and miscommunications that stymied productive work. In each case, failures were remembered in very stylized and restructured ways that stressed the validity of the science and the valor of the scientists while drawing on tropes of African communities as irrational and superstitious. Capacity is built and maintained by having a functional institutional memory, which includes recounting failure and an ability to integrate knowledge from failure, leading to new approaches. It is found that remembering failures in such stylized forms systematically diminished the functionality of their institutional memory.     

A marketing board to regulate exports of natural gas?1

Abstract. The National Energy Board applies three guidelines in regulating natural gas export prices: (1) that the export price should cover all costs of service; (2) that it be fair in relation to comparable domestic prices; (3) that it not be materially less than the prices of alternative sources of energy in the relevant foreign markets. This paper shows that the NEB has been, and can expect to be, reasonably successful in ensuring that the first two guidelines are met, but that difficulties arise with respect to the third. These include: the problems of finding out the opportunity cost in export markets, United Sates Federal Power Commission resistance to high import prices, depressed Canadian field prices, and a preference by foreign-owned gas pipeline companies for exporting at low prices. It is argued that even if the third define were met some of the benefits would still flow abroad because much or the Canadian gas industry is foreign owned. The suggestion is -made that the establishment of a government-owned marketing board given sole rights to make exports of natural gas would enable Canada to retain an increased share of the benefits of natural gas exports. Sommaire. L'Office national de l'énergie applique trois principes pour normaliser les prix du gaz naturel à l'exportation: (1) le prix à l'exportation doit couvrir tous les coûts du service; (2) il doit être équitable par rapport aux prix domestiques; (3) il ne doit pas être inférieur au prix des autres sources d'énergie utilisables sur les marchés étrangers intéressés. D'après l'auteur, le CNE a réussi dans une mesure raisonnable à appliquer les deux premiers principes et continuera vraisemblablement à le faire. C'est dans l'application du troisième principe qu'il a rencontré des difficultés. Elles ont été entre autres: les problèmes de découvrir ce que devrait être le juste prix sur les marchés d'exportation, la réistance de la Federal Power Commission des Etats-Unis à des prix d'importation élevés, les bas prix sur place, au Canada, et la tendance des compagnies de pipe-lines d'appartenance étrangère à vendre à bas prix. L'auteur déclare que même si le troisième principe pouvait être appliquê, certains des bénéfices continueraient à passer à l'étranger parce qu'une grande partie de l'industrie canadienne du gaz est entre des mains étrangkres. Il suggère que le gouvernement établisse un conseil gouvememental de mise en marché qui aurait les droits exclusifs d'exportation du gaz naturel. De cette façon, le Canada jouirait dhne participation croissante aux bénéfices des exportations de gaz naturel.     

Agricultural Biotechnology and Regime Formation: A Constructivist Assessment of the Prospects

Controversies surrounding the appropriate use and diffusion of agricultural biotechnologies are giving rise to questions about governance at the international level. This article investigates the likelihood that a single, international regime or multiple regimes governing this technology will form by way of negotiation. We show that four normative–institutional arrangements, organized around distinct general principles, have a potential governance role: world food security and safety, liberalized trade, protection of intellectual property, and conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. We argue that an adequate amount of compatibility between the principles and norms of these arrangements is required to support the type of communicative action or truth–seeking needed to develop the intersubjective understanding for a regime. Using a framework for assessing normative compatibility, we find not one, but two nascent understandings rooted in the trade and biodiversity areas competing to form the foundation for governance. Further analysis of levels of institutional density between the two developing regimes reveals they are presently too low to support a negotiated resolution of normative conflict. Finally, we demonstrate that recent framing attempts at the international level to decrease areas of tension and incompatibility in principles/norms between the regimes have neglected to create the crucial normative background conditions needed to avert a scenario of increased political conflict in the near future.