Biodiversity, including entire habitats and ecosystems, is recognized to be of great social and economic value. Conserving biodiversity has therefore become a task of international NGO’s as well as grass-roots organisations. The ‘classical’ model of conservation has been characterised by creation of designated nature areas to allow biodiversity to recover from the effects of human activities. Typically, such areas prohibit entry other than through commercial ecotourism or necessary monitoring activities, but also often involve commodification nature. This classical conservation model has been criticized for limiting valuation of nature to its commercial worth and for being insensitive to local communities. Simultaneously, ‘new conservation’ approaches have emerged. Propagating openness of conservation approaches, ‘new conservation’ has counteracted the calls for strict measures of biodiversity protection as the only means of protecting biodiversity. In turn, the ’new conservation’ was criticised for being inadequate in protecting those species that are not instrumental for human welfare. The aim of this article is to inquire whether sustainable future for non-humans can be achieved based on commodification of nature and/or upon open approaches to conservation. It is argued that while economic development does not necessarily lead to greater environmental protection, strict regulation combined with economic interests can be effective. Thus, economic approaches by mainstream conservation institutions cannot be easily dismissed. However, ‘new conservation’ can also be useful in opening up alternatives, such as care-based and spiritual approaches to valuation of nature. Complementary to market-based approaches to conservation, alternative ontologies of the human development as empathic beings embedded in intimate ethical relations with non-humans are proposed. https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
That expressive writing can be a beneficial response to trauma or grief is well-established in the literature. Grief research also shows that the majority of people are resilient in the face of the death of loved ones. That said, traditional rituals around loss are no longer ubiquitous, well-known phase models of bereavement are contested, and ‘unfinished business’ can create difficulties in the face of loss. Increasingly, bereavement scholars speak of a need for individuals in western society to make meaning of their own grief through narrative construction, though little is said about what constitutes a beneficial story. The author takes an autoethnographic approach to write and reflect on her spouse’s illness and death and explores through a multi-voiced expressive dialogue a personal issue around her bereavement. In an analysis of her writing, using Dialogical Self Theory, she identifies markers which may be indicative of the development of a beneficially constructed narrative. The model of writing-for-transformation is used to describe the overall intent of the process, while the dialogical markers show how progress may be identified. Reinekke Lengelle (2020) Writing the Self and Bereavement: Dialogical Means and Markers of Moving Through Grief, Life Writing, 17:1, 103-122, DOI: 10.1080/14484528.2020.1710796
In Nederland komen maandelijks mensen in vertelgroepen bij elkaar om samen de kunst van het verhalen vertellen te beoefenen. Tekla Slangen liep een half jaar als participerend onderzoeker mee met een lokale vertelgroep. In dit artikel geeft ze een inkijk in wat vertellers beweegt en waaraan ze hun waarde ontlenen.Lang voordat Netflix ons elke dag duizend en een verhalen kon vertellen via een beeldscherm, waren er mensen die de mooiste verhalen in geuren en kleuren uit de doeken deden en hun publiek van alles lieten beleven:verhalenvertellers.Heden ten dage zijn er in Nederland nog steeds tal van vertellers en vertelgroepen actief die voor groot en klein publiek optreden. Zij vertellen uit het hoofd allerlei soorten verhalen, van sprookjes, mythes en fabels tot fragmenten uit de geschiedenis en persoonlijke ervaringen. Wat is de aantrekkingskracht van het verhalen vertellen voor de individuele verteller? Wat voor activiteiten ondernemen zij? En wanneer vinden ze het vertellen van een verhaal echt geslaagd? Deze vragen zijn de aanleiding geweest voor een kleinschalig etnografisch onderzoek naar vertellers bij een vertelgroep. In dit artikel beschrijf ik de belangrijkste resultaten, met de Nederlandse vertelscene als kader.
