By supporting creation of protected areas, conservation projects are known to bring economic prosperity to the local communities, but also incite criticism. A common theme in the critique of conservation organizations is the proximity to neoliberal agencies seeking to capitalize on environment, which disadvantage the local communities. Community participation has been proposed as a panacea for neoliberal conservation. However, conservation efficacy is not always contingent on the community involvement and reliance on ‘traditional’ practices in protected areas has not always benefitted biodiversity. Simultaneously, critique of conservation ignores evidence of indigenous activism as well as alternative forms of environmentalism which provide a broader ethical support base for conservation. This article highlights the challenges and contradictions, as well as offers hopeful directions in order to more effectively ground compassionate conservation. https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2015.1048765 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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Stefan Bengtsson's commentary about policy hegemony discusses the alternative discourses of socialism, nationalism, and globalism. However, Stefan does not adequately demonstrate how these discourses can overcome the Dominant Western Worldview (DWW), which is imbued with anthropocentrism. It will be argued here that most policy choices promoting sustainability, and education for it, are made within a predetermined system in which the already limiting notion of environmental protection is highly contingent on human welfare. What would really contest the dominant assumptions of Vietnamese policy and, more specifically, education for sustainable development (ESD) is an alternative discourse that challenges the DWW. That alternative discourse embraces philosophical ecocentrism and practices of ecological justice between all species, and deep ecology theory - all perspectives fundamentally committed to environmental protection. https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2015.1048502 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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This paper explores the intersection of Human-Comput- er Integration (HInt) and Critical Disability Studies (CDS) to explore how a posthumanistic epistemology in design can produce knowledge and know-how for the application do- mains of Health and Well-being. To use disability as a catalyst for innovation, a rethinking in the philosophy of sciences is necessary to establish knowledge production that emerges from new fluid politics that operate in ‘composition’ instead of ‘organization’. By placing an emphasis on nomadic practic- es that move beyond fixed borders, the encounters between Disability Studies or Human-Computer Integration can pro- duce situated, embodied and contingent design knowledge that study deviant and complex embodiment, and the kinds of alterations of human characteristics and abilities through technology. The first section of this paper explores the re- thinking in the philosophy of sciences. The second section ar- gues for a posthumanistic epistemology in design, which can be seen as the perfect way to produce situated, embodied and contingent design knowledge on the intersection of HInt and CDS. The final section of this paper highlights the poten- tial for the disciplines of Somatechnics and Soma Design to engage in each other’s body of knowledge to produce trans- formative knowledge through a shared focus on deviant em- bodiment and disability. The takeaway message of this paper is that the intersection of HInt and CDS potentially leads to new – otherwise overlooked - insights on the human-technol- ogy relationship, and therefore can take part in the historical strive for man-machine symbiosis. The posthumanist episte- mology allows for alternative ways of thinking that move be- yond the current Humanist perspective, and builds on a plu- ral, relational and expansive foundation for the development of design practices that catalyze innovation in the application domains of Health and Well-being.
