Out of the mainstream: water rights,politics and identity

ABSTRACT

Indigenous maize from Mexico has become crucial for a wave of contemporary agricultural development initiatives seeking to cultivate a ‘Green Revolution for Africa’. Plant breeders developing disease-resistant hybrid maize for Africa use cutting edge technologies like CRISPR-Cas9 to mine the genomes of maize collected in Mexico 75 years ago, during the Green Revolution’s earliest incarnation. Historicizing this transnational linkage, this paper argues that Green Revolution science appropriates indigenous maize through racial logics rooted in whiteness. In the 1940s, American scientists sent by the Rockefeller Foundation to improve Mexico’s agriculture negotiated their own racial subjectivity through their encounters with Mexico’s indigenous people. In the process, they constructed a racial hierarchy that equated whiteness with scientific superiority and indigeneity with underdevelopment. This racialization undergirded a maize program led by E.J. Wellhausen that collected and catalogued hundreds of varieties of Mexico’s maize – and then distributed them to American seed companies. Wellhausen’s seeds formed the genetic backbone for subsequent Green Revolution projects. The ‘white science’ he embodied expanded as the Revolution sought out nonwhite agriculture across the global South. Today, the Green Revolution’s racial logics are re-articulated along its geographical and technological frontier, as indigenous maize provides the seeds for the African Green Revolution.     

Attitudes among medical and law students toward decision-making in regard to involuntary psychiatric hospitalization

Background

The management of individuals with mental illnesses sometimes requires involuntary hospitalization. The Israel Mental Health Act requires that cases of involuntary psychiatric hospitalization (IPH) be periodically reviewed by the district psychiatric committee. The discussion in the committee often leads to debate regarding the need for an IPH potentially depriving the patient of his freedom. Little is known about the way in which the psychiatrists and attorneys on these committees arrive at their decisions. The present study was designed to examine the views of future doctors and attorneys concerning cases of possible IPH to determine whether their decisions would be influenced by their respective professional educational backgrounds.

Methods

After compiling demographic data, we asked 170 students from each of the two disciplines what their decision would be in two hypothetical cases that dealt with the question of a prolongation of a psychiatric hospitalization. Questionnaires examining social distance and possible stigmatizing views concerning psychiatric patients were also distributed and collected.

Results

The response rates for the medical and law students were, respectively, 90% and 85%. We found no differences between the medical and law students regarding their views on prolongation of a psychiatric hospitalization. This was consistent regardless of whether the hospitalization was against the patient's will or according to his wish and against the treating physicians' advice. We also found that the medical and law students had similar general views regarding psychiatric patients, but that the latter evidenced greater social distance than the former.

Conclusions

Academic background and socialization were not found to influence the decisions of students regarding IPH. Educational programs and exposure to psychiatric patients during law studies are proposed to lessen psychiatric stigma and promote better understanding between members of the two disciplines.     

An examination of intimate partner violence and psychological stressors in adult abortion patients

The purpose of this article is to describe an exploratory study examining the relationship between intimate partner violence and psychological stressors in a sample of 188 adult abortion patients. Results indicate the almost 15% of respondents report a history of abuse by the coconceiving partner. In addition, women who reported having had one or more past abortions were more likely to also report that the person involved in the current pregnancy had also emotionally abused them. Women reporting one type of partner abuse were significantly more likely to also report other types of abuse. Women reporting abuse were less likely to report informing their coconceiving partner of their appointment at the clinic, less likely to report that their partner contributed financially to the abortion cost, and more likely to report partner refusal to wear a condom. Women who reported emotional abuse were more likely to score higher on all but one of the psychological stressor scales. The implications of these findings are discussed.