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The Eugenics of Normalcy

Molecular biologists now claim that they can link specific DNA sequences to specific diseases, forms of human behaviour and social conditions -- from diabetes and cystic fibrosis to homosexuality, alcoholism, intelligence and even homelessness. Although based on flawed science, such claims are being used to divert attention from environmental factors in disease and to legitimise new forms of intervention in social life. The myth of the “all powerful gene” threatens to impose a new eugenics -- with “normality” defined by arbitrary models of a standard human.

No Rules of Engagement

Effective political struggle in intercultural space means creatively weaving in and out of all the cultures present.

“The Rich countries are responsible for the continuing poverty of the South”

The rich have never been shy about praising the qualities that created their wealth. Nor are they short of convenient explanations for the poverty of others -- from “the breeding habits of the poor” to “economic mismanagement” and “protectionism”. But they have always found it difficult to explain poverty in ways that do not implicate themselves, contends this contribution to an Oxford Union debate, held at Oxford University, UK.

Listen to the Refugee's Story

UK companies, taxpayers and the government support many human rights abuses that can accompany British investment abroad and that can ultimately force people to flee their homes and their countries.

Forestry, Politics and Violent Conflict

Violence over and against forests cannot be explained by population increase nor by other linear, office-bound models of change which pit abstracted “humans” against an abstracted “nature”. This book chapter uses examples from England hundreds of years ago and from Viet Nam during the US war there to show that local people’s struggle for their rights to use the forests were continually threatened and partly defined by interests operating outside the forests.

Freedom to Plant

This essay sketches some of the pressures behind -- and some of the dangers of -- the expansion of the pulp and paper industry in Southeast Asia over the last decade. It describes some of the mechanisms by which the industry has enclosed land and water in two of the countries most affected, Indonesia and Thailand, and outlines the various forms of opposition the industry is meeting. It concludes by indicating some of the strategies the industry is using to manage this resistance.

Same Platform: Different Train

Participation, forests and environment all mean different things to different people and different interest groups. This presentation analyses the discourse on participation, as reflected in conflicts over forest resources and more widely. It highlights examples where participation is being used to soften resistance to projects or to engineer consent.

The Planet as a Patient

A presentation looking at the forces which have degraded the earth and which now propose to manage its recovery through processes such as “sustainable development”.

Polanyi along the Mekong

Multilateral agencies have been promoting the commoditization of land in the Mekong region. How is this project being advanced and resisted?

“Population Talk”

The Malthus Factor makes a significant contribution to breaking out of the population framework, paving the way for a wider and potentially more fruitful exploration of poverty, development, deforestation, pollution, national security, social stability -- and of women’s self-determination in their lives in general, not just their fertility.