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Adoption, climate crisis and making kin: Australian young people discuss their reproductive futures
(2026) Roberts, Celia; Rasmussen, Mary Lou; Harrison, Lily; Reinhardt, Elizabeth; Bartels, Greta; Eagleton, Alex; Connon, Aoife
For many people in the Global North, climate crisis renders reproduction a fraught issue, prompting questions about whether it is right to bring more people into a rapidly deteriorating world. Feminist theorists have written variously about this issue, with many arguing for multiplying forms of kinship that are not based on biogenetic connection. Adoption is often offered as an example of such alternative kinning practices. This article reports on interviews with Australians who are not parents, aged 24–35, about the connections between climate crisis and reproduction, and their thoughts and feelings about having children in the future. Many participants mentioned the idea that instead of conceiving and birthing children, they might adopt or foster and/or argued that others should do so rather than have ‘their own’ children. The article critically explores the figures of adoption as an ethical solution to the problem of overpopulation in our participants’ accounts of reproduction and in feminist academic literature. We argue that both propagate unrealistic and potentially harmful tropes in the wish for solutions to serious personal and political dilemmas.
Access status: Open Access ,
Management and biosecurity practices in village chicken flocks in the Central-Northern region of Burkina Faso
(2026-01-26) Dione, Michel; Ganser, Claudia; Kagambèga, Assèta; Ouedraogo, Abdoul Aziz; Alders, Robyn; Ildoudo, Guy; Ouedraogo, Brice; Knight-Jones, Theodore
Background: Improvements in chicken management, husbandry, biosecurity, and hygiene can potentially secure and improve smallholders’ livelihoods in two ways: by reducing flock exposure to foodborne and environmental pathogens, and by increasing production for sale and home consumption. Interventions to improve flock hygiene and productivity are often not adequately tailored to achieve maximal impact with limited resources. Aim: This study assessed the management and biosecurity practices of 483 village chicken producers in 23 villages in Burkina Faso. Methods: Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA) was carried out on 29 variables representing the main aspects of management and biosecurity practices that differentiate flocks. Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) was conducted on flock MFA scores using Ward’s criteria for linkage. Results: Results revealed three clusters associated with chicken keeping type, waste management, and disease control practices. Although the clustering was weak, the practices that differentiated flock management practices, in order of importance, were frequency and methods of cleaning chicken shelters and household courtyards; animal health practices such as deworming and quarantining newly purchased birds; disposal of dead birds; and the use of feces as fertilizers for crops. Variables related to the purchase and sale of chickens, as well as the use of sales revenues, were less decisive in differentiating flock management practices. Conclusions: This understanding will make it possible to design local targeted interventions that meet the specific needs of each flock management cluster rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach. Findings from this study will inform the development of context-specific, resource-efficient strategies to strengthen biosecurity in village chicken production systems across rural Burkina Faso.
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Key Moments in the Ethnography of Drug-Related Harm: Reality Checks for Policy-Makers?
(John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2005) Moore, David
As the various chapters in this book demonstrate, drug research, policy and practice encompass a broad field that includes many different approaches-such as psychology, epidemiology and public health. While these approaches provide invaluable insights into drug use, they sometimes neglect a dimension that is crucial to policy and practice-the meaning of drug use for drug users themselves. The ethnography of drug use, with its focus on everyday, lived experience, vividly conveys the "cultural logics" constructed by drug users and the complex interweavings of these cultural logics with wider social, economic and cultural structures. While "ethnography" shares many of the methods of qualitative research more generally (e.g., in-depth interviews), it is distinguished by its principal reliance on interaction with drug users as they go about their everyday activities. Ethnography has a long history in the drug field that has produced many important studies. This chapter reviews several key moments in drug ethnography and is organised around six overlapping themes. First, ethnography has played an important role in explicating drug-related behaviour that may, at first glance, seem "irrational" or incomprehensible to policy-makers and practitioners. From the perspective of drug users, there may be compelling reasons for engaging in harmful drug use. Second, ethnography has documented the negative impact of poorly-designed policy and practice on drug-related harm. In particular, ethnographic research has demonstrated how saturation policing may exacerbate, rather than reduce, drug-related harm. Third, ethnography has provided important data on "hidden populations", including the sometimes "hidden" assumptions that inform drug research, policy and practice. Fourth, ethnography has challenged conventional policy and practice, such as public health orthodoxy regarding the dangers of sharing injecting paraphernalia. Fifth, ethnography has, in multidisciplinary combination with other approaches, particularly drug epidemiology, produced innovative explanations for patterns of HIV/AIDS infection. Finally, ethnography has played a key role in assisting in the design of specific prevention programmes, particularly in relation to injecting drug use and the prevention of HIV/AIDS, that target the cultural and social dimensions of drug-related harm.
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The Appropriation of Appleton-le-Street to St Albans: Law and Practice in a Yorkshire Parish
(2025) McDonald, Peter
Appropriations of parishes were common in the Middle Ages but could be protracted and difficult. This paper traces St Albans’ acquisition of Appleton-le-Street in Ryedale in 1358, thirty years after its first attempt. Grants from John XXII in 1328 and 1331, to alleviate the abbey’s debts, attracted legal challenges from the diocese of York and foundered because the incumbent rector, Walter Fleming, served until 1358. A third bull from Clement VI, to enable the abbey to support students at Oxford, was then executed. But this led to a lawsuit in the papal curia after the abbey rejected a summons to a diocesan synod. The case centred on the extent of diocesan jurisdiction over an exempt appropriator: the abbey pushed its claims to exemption, while the diocese attempted to restrain them with a canon from the Council of Vienne. The parties settled, unsurprisingly given the complexity of the arguments and the prudent temperaments of Abbot de la Mare and Archbishop Thoresby. The vicar, not the abbot, would attend synods, but the abbey pledged pensions to the archbishop and the chapter and devolved many of the rectoral tithes to the vicar along with maintenance of the chancel. The arrangement survived a challenge from the erratic Archbishop Neville in 1379, though other legal headaches continued. The abbey probably gained less than it hoped. But the benefice seems to have maintained its value, and the parishioners might not have noticed much difference from the chronic absentee Fleming.
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Generating Cell Surface Nucleated Hydrogels with an Artificial Membrane-Binding Transglutaminase
(2025-11-24) Cuahtecontzi Delint, Rosalia; Li, Tao; Patel, Kapil D.; Zhang, Will H.; Carter, Ben M.; Day, Graham J.; Perriman, Adam W.
Advanced cell therapies require robust matrices for enhanced efficacy and delivery, but fabricating cell-specific hydrogels with strong tissue adhesiveness remains challenging. Cell membrane engineering offers a non-genetic strategy to modify cell surfaces and improve therapeutic properties. This study reports an artificial membrane-binding protein (AMBP), [cat.mTG(S)], that drives in situ formation of proteinaceous hydrogels on the plasma membrane of human dermal fibroblasts (HDFs). The AMBP is created by chemically supercharging (cationizing) microbial transglutaminase (mTG) and then electrostatically complexing it with an anionic polymer-surfactant (S). Biophysical studies confirm that this polymer surfactant complexation stabilizes the enzyme's structure and partially restores its activity lost during cationization. [cat.mTG(S)] effectively labels HDF plasma membranes with low cytotoxicity, unlike unmodified mTG (no binding) or cationized mTG (internalized). Live-cell confocal microscopy demonstrates that [cat.mTG(S)] on HDFs successfully cross-links external proteins into robust hydrogels extending beyond the cell surface and bridging cells, maintaining high cell viability. This AMBP provides a novel, non-genetic approach for localized, cell-surface engineering, enabling direct creation of protective and interactive hydrogel microenvironments for advanced cell-based therapies.