MELANIA'S HOME TOWN

Amid pandemic, Belgrade street kids find comfort at refuge
By JOVANA GEC

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In this photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020, a girl puts on her mask in Svratiste, or Roadhouse, Belgrade's first daily drop-in center for street children, in Serbia. For years, a small house tucked away in a Belgrade residential area has been an oasis of warmth and comfort for the Serbian capital's most vulnerable inhabitants - street children. The Roadhouse drop-in center has served the basic needs of hundreds of children who often have nowhere else to wash, warm up or properly eat. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — In a small, brightly-colored backstreet house in Belgrade a teenage girl is drying her hair, while two others eat lunch in the kitchen. A group of boys are having their temperatures checked at the entrance as a precaution against coronavirus.

It’s another busy day for Svratiste, or Roadhouse, Belgrade’s first daily drop-in center for street kids that for years has been a rare oasis of warmth and comfort for the Serbian capital’s most vulnerable inhabitants.

Since opening in 2007, Svratiste has welcomed hundreds of children — some as young as five — who have come here to warm up, wash or eat. With social isolation growing and the economic situation worsening in the pandemic, the center’s role has become even more significant.

Coordinator Mina Lukic said the health crisis has made Belgrade’s poor even poorer as it takes a toll on the Balkan country’s struggling economy. Prices of plastic and other scrap material that the kids and their families collect to sell have dropped dramatically in the past months, shrinking already meager earnings.

“We believe this is why we have more children visiting us in the past weeks than they used to,” she said.

“The kids that come to us are all aged 5 to 15, pre-school or primary school children,” she added. “What’s common for all of them is that they work in the street and live in extreme poverty.”

Hundreds, if not thousands of children in Belgrade fit that category. Their families typically live in make-shift slum settlements, and mostly stay out of the state’s social, health care and education systems.

From an early age, the children are sent out in the streets to beg, collect scrap materials or look for other ways to find food or money. They often face abuse and very few ever go to school.

While Serbia has a nationwide network of social care centers and institutions for the underprivileged, Lukic said the street kids often slip under the radar.

”They are a separate (social) group and should be treated as such,” she insisted.

Svratiste’s team of 13 social workers, psychologists and other experts have welcomed more than 1,400 children over the years. Funded by donors and people who regularly bring in clothes and other aid, the group recently set up another center in a new part of town.

Normally open every day, both centers only closed down during the national state of emergency when the pandemic started in March. The activists stayed in touch with the kids and their families, who returned when the lockdown was lifted in May.

In this photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020, people pass by graffiti on a wall reading: "Stop selling children!!!" across the street from Svratiste, or Roadhouse, Belgrade's first daily drop-in center for street children, in Serbia. For years, a small house tucked away in a Belgrade residential area has been an oasis of warmth and comfort for the Serbian capital's most vulnerable inhabitants - street children. The Roadhouse drop-in center has served the basic needs of hundreds of children who often have nowhere else to wash, warm up or properly eat. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Apart from providing food and clothes, the Svratiste team has also sought to help the children socialize and get to know their town by visiting playgrounds, cinemas and theaters. A key effort has been to include them in the education system and make sure they stay. During the pandemic, the center helped with online classes that most children have no means of following.

One of their success stories has been Bosko Markovic, now 18, who first came to Svratiste five years ago. With the center’s help, Markovic has finished high school and now has his eyes set on becoming a policeman, he told the Associated Press.

“They (Svratiste) have made me a better person,” he said proudly.

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“One Good Thing” is a series that highlights individuals whose actions provide glimmers of joy in hard times — stories of people who find a way to make a difference, no matter how small. Read the collection of stories at https://apnews.com/hub/one-good-thing

Toilet paper limits, empty shelves are back as virus surges
By JOSEPH PISANI and ANNE D'INNOCENZIO 

November 17, 2020

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Shelves in the paper towel and toilet paper section are depleted at a Meijer Store in Carmel, Ind., Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2020. A surge of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. is sending people back to stores to stockpile again, leaving shelves bare and forcing retailers to put limits on purchases. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

NEW YORK (AP) — Looking for toilet paper? Good luck.

A surge of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. is sending people back to stores to stockpile again, leaving shelves bare and forcing retailers to put limits on purchases.

Walmart said Tuesday it’s having trouble keeping up with demand for cleaning supplies in some stores. Supermarket chains Kroger and Publix are limiting how much toilet paper and paper towels shoppers can buy after demand spiked recently. And Amazon is sold out of most disinfectant wipes and paper towels.



A similar scene played out back in March, when the pandemic first hit and people hunkered down in their homes.

But Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the Consumer Brands Association, formerly the Grocery Manufacturers Association, said he doesn’t expect things to be as bad this go-around since lockdowns are being handled on a regional basis and everyone is better prepared.

“A more informed consumer combined with a more informed manufacturer and a more informed retailer should provide all of us with a greater sense of ease and ensure we can meet this growing demand, “ Freeman said.

The biggest supply issue seems to be paper products: 21% of shelves that stock paper towels and toilet paper are empty, the highest level in at least a month, according to market research company IRI. Cleaning supplies have remained level at 16%. Before the pandemic, 5% to 7% of consumer goods were typically out of stock, IRI said.

Contributing to the problem is the fact that roughly 10% of the workforce at manufacturing plants where the products are made are calling out sick, mainly because they’ve been in contact with others who were tested positive to COVID-19, Freeman said.

Kelly Anderson of Colorado Springs, Colorado, said she needs more supplies now that in-person school in her area was canceled earlier this month and her two children are at home more. She’s noticed others are stocking up, too: Safeway and Walmart were nearly wiped out of bottled water and disinfectant wipes during a recent visit, both of which had been easy to find since the summer.
Full Coverage: Coronavirus pandemic

It’s also been harder to find a time slot to get her groceries delivered. Anderson says she’s had to wait as many as two days instead of same-day delivery. But that’s still not as bad as earlier this year

“March seems like a million years ago, but I do remember freaking out,” she said. “I couldn’t get groceries delivered for a week.”

Walmart said while supplies are stressed in some areas, it thinks it will be able to handle any stockpiling now than earlier this year. Amazon said its working with manufacturers to get items such as disinfecting wipes, paper towels and hand sanitizer in stock.

«Pandemics affect women and men differently» 

The history of and experiences from previous pandemics give us important information about how to handle today’s corona pandemic.

«Nearly everything we know about pandemics emergency preparedness and how the measures affect society long-term comes from the Spanish flu experience», says May-Brith Ohman Nielsen. The photo is from Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C in 1918. (Photo: Harris & Ewing / Wikipedia)

Susanne Dietrichson JOURNALIST, 

KILDEN GENDER RESEARCH NEWS MAGAZINE
Thursday 30. july 2020 - 

Covid-19 is not the first pandemic in human history, nor will it be the last. But have pandemics affected women and men differently through the ages? And can we learn anything about why and how, so we better understand what goes on today?

«Pandemics are a magnifying glass that sheds light on social conditions, gender included,» says May-Britt Ohman Nielsen, professor of history at the University of Agder.

Tuberculosis is one example of a disease that has affected women and men differently at different times, according to May-Brith Ohman Nielsen. 

(Photo: UiA)

Case history into consideration

Nielsen works with the history of medicine, illness, health, and epidemics. She studies how pandemics affect women and men differently and uses examples from cholera and tuberculosis.

«Infectious diseases affect women and men differently, primarily because they have different roles and functions through history,» she says.

Tuberculosis has had different effects on the sexes throughout the ages, according to Nielsen.

«The disease is still active and widespread in large parts of the world, and people live with it for a while,» she explains.

«The disease spreads through droplet infection, and the source is often difficult to trace because the illness develops slowly. Infected persons may have been ill for a long time before the symptoms occur, and the infected or their surroundings become aware of them.»

Men spread infection, women nursed

Men were often the first to be infected during pandemics such as cholera and tuberculosis because they travelled more, as sailors, tradesmen, and soldiers, Nielsen explains.

«Consequently, men spread the diseases in larger circles, as they travelled, were infected, and brought the diseases home with them.»

At home, the infected men were often nursed by their sisters, mothers, wives, and daughters, who then became infected.

«It was not unusual that the women in the family felt pressure to take care of the men regardless of whether they wanted to. Those who brought home the money took precedence in the family regardless of how dangerous the disease might have been,» says Nielsen.

«Traditionally, women have carried the burden of care and taken on the emotional responsibility. This makes up the greatest difference between men and women regarding illnesses and pandemics. Women take care of children, spouses, and parents.»

Guilt and shame

To get infected with cholera, you have to swallow the bacteria. It infects through contact, but primarily through the drinking water. When the source of infection could not be identified, people came up with other theories about how the disease was spread, according to Nielsen. These theories were also gendered.

«For instance, many believed that cholera was a punishment from God. And there were different ideas about why women and men were punished», she says.

«When it came to the men, they were often thought to be punished for drunkenness, whereas women were infected because they were promiscuously dressed and had bad morals.»

The fact that tuberculosis could be connected to hygiene also affected men and women differently. The illness brought along strict requirements for the housewife in terms of infection control measures and hygiene, Nielsen explains.


«If a family was infected, the woman of the house might be considered a bad housewife who failed to keep a clean home. Tuberculosis resulted in a lot of shame,» she says.

«The men were forbidden to spit, while the women were required to clean.»

«Like covid-19, the plague spread as a result of increased globalisation», says Ole Georg Moseng. (Photo: USN)

Plagues and globalisation

Ole Georg Moseng, professor of history at University of South-Eastern Norway, has studied the history of plagues. He also draws parallels to today’s epidemic.

«Like covid-19, the plague spread through increased globalisation,» he says.

«The plague has always been a part of human history. The oldest recorded case is from 3 900 BCE, and the last major epidemic is from 2017 in Madagascar. Plague outbreaks occur in several countries across the world every single year.»

In other words, the plague still affects us. But as a pandemic, we are primarily talking about three major waves, Moseng explains. The earliest recorded pandemic occurred in the early Middle Ages between c. 540 and 750 CE, the second began in 1346 and lasted until 1722, whereas the third pandemic wave occurred in the late 1800s.

«The first outbreak started in the cities that were the centres of civilisation: Rome, Carthage, Constantinople and in the vicinity of Alexandria,» says Moseng.

During the second and largest outbreak, which began in Crimea in 1346 and is referred to as the Black Death, the plague spread to large parts of Europe through travelling tradesmen and explorers. Repeated outbreaks in Western Europe occurred up until the early 1700s.

«We may, therefore, assume that men spread of the plague, particularly as tradesmen,» he says.

«The third plague pandemic broke out in India and China in the late nineteenth century and spread all over the world during the course of two decades. In Europe, it caused a number of minor outbreaks of plague around the year 1900.»
«Women most sorely affected»

Moseng explains that the plague bacteria is transmitted to humans via fleas from wild rodents. And during the Black Death it particularly spread through the black rat, which eats grain and grain products, but is more or less extinct in Europe today.

«We have relatively good data on gender differences in how the plague affected people from the 1600s onwards. It seems like women were most affected by the plague», says Moseng. But recent studies of the Black Death in the 1340s indicate that this was also the case back then.

The black rat is one possible explanation to why more women than men had the plague.

«Women stayed more inside the houses than men did. Rats lived in the houses, and may have given the plague on to women,» he says.

«In addition, women held traditional caring functions, which made them more exposed to infection. They had the main responsibility for the children and the elderly in the family, and their job was to care for those who were ill.»

Moseng states that another consequence of the plague, more indirectly gendered,is how it contributed to the collapse of the feudal system.

«The Black Death resulted in an enormous and persistent decline in the population in Europe, which led to poorer conditions for women in the long term,» he says.

The land rent went down and fewer people paid taxes. The feudal lords, that is, the big farmers, kings and the church, lost power. The workers’ wages went up, and the petty farmers had more money to spend.

«As a result, the land-owning aristocracy’s economic, political and social hegemony was weakened, which laid the foundation for the growth of the bourgeoisie. In bourgeois society, women had less power than in the agricultural feudal society,» says Moseng.

«Feudal society was hierarchical, but women were nevertheless more equal to men in their life as a housewife on a farm», he says.

«The wife on the farm had a lot of power, whereas bourgeois norms ensured that the men were given a more distinct leader position within the family.»
More men died of the Spanish flu

«The Spanish flu came to Norway in 1918, and led to the death of 15 000 Norwegians, or 0.6 per cent of the population. Approximately half of the Norwegian population were probably infected by the disease», according to Svenn-Erik Mamelund who is a demographer and pandemics researcher at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet).

Mamelund explains that the flu pandemic affected Norway in four waves: Two in 1918, one in 1919 and a ‘echo-wave’ in 1920.

There is not enough data on gender differences in mortality rates globally. But Mamelund says that it is likely that a few more men than women died of the Spanish flu, as was the case in Norway. People around the age of thirty became sicker and died more often.

«Especially during summer 1918, more men than women were infected. Men had broader and more frequent contact with others through work and social activities than women.»

Svenn-Erik Mamelund believes that the fact that young people in fertile age now find themselves in a society in lockdown may cause further decrease in the number of childbirths. (Photo: OsloMet)

Young adults particularly affected

The Spanish flu affected primarily young adults between the age of twenty and forty. That is when women are most fertile.

«This is partly why there was a dramatic decline in the birth rate in 1919, and nine months after the Spanish flu was at a peak in the autumn of 1918. People were hesitant to have sex, because they feared being infected or because they were already ill. The mortality rate among pregnant women increased, especially during the late stages of pregnancy. The number of miscarriages also increased,» Mamelund explains.

«Many men and women lost their spouse to the flu. Approximately 4 800 people were widowed in 1918–19, and the Marriage Act required at least one year of mourning before one was allowed to re-marry. Unless a woman was already pregnant when she lost her husband to the Spanish flu, she was by law denied a new pregnancy before she had re-married. Of course some women did conceive outside of marriage, but this was not common.»

Mamelund maintains that the baby boom in Norway in 1920 is a result of the Spanish flu rather than the end of the First World War, as many historians have claimed.

«The 1920 baby boom is the greatest in Norway, only beaten by the one following the Second World War in 1946. Many people postponed marriage and childbirths until the epidemic was over in 1919. Also, Norway did not participate in the First World War,» he says.

Mamelund draws parallels to the current pandemic. The fertility rate in Norway is in decline due to the corona epidemic, according to an article in the Norwegian newspaper DN.

«The fertility rate has been in decline for a long time in Norway, and the fact that young fertile people now find themselves in a society in lockdown may cause further decrease in the number of childbirths», he says.

Widows were badly affected

Coming back to the Spanish flu, Mamelund maintains that women who lost their husbands were probably affected harder than men who became widowers.

«At that time there was no such thing as widow’s pension and social security programs, and the women lost the family’s breadwinner,» he says.

«I would like to do more research on what happened with the bereaved during this pandemic. What coping strategies did they have? What happened to all the orphans? Did women apply different strategies than men? I believe they did.»

Mamelund gives one example: A woman from the Norwegian midlands was left behind with two small children when her husband and two other children died of the Spanish flu.

She did not re-marry; instead, she divided her land, kept an acre and sold the rest. She built a house on her part of the land and bought a cow, a goat and hens for the money she got from the sale. Her daughters worked on farms in their spare time, so that they could get enough healthy food.
Resulted in widow’s pension

The Spanish flu changed the society, also for women. In 1919, the Labour Party introduced social security benefits for single mothers and widows in the capitol, according to Mamelund.

«The reason may have been the consequences the Spanish flu had for women who lost their husbands to the disease and were left behind with small children.»

Many have referred to the Spanish flu as the forgotten pandemic, he says.

«But forgotten by whom? The doctors? Historians? The history of the Spanish flu is no victory narrative and it has no winners. I think that many people wanted to forget. They wanted to leave the pandemic behind and move on.»

Here, too, there are gender perspectives, according to Mamelund.

«Nancy Bristow, an American professor of history and pandemic researcher, has studied the Spanish flu by going through diaries, letters, photographs, and other ethnographic and archive material. According to her, the doctors – who were primarily men – wanted to forget the Spanish flu altogether. They felt that they had lost the battle against the disease, and they felt powerless and disappointed.»

«For the nurses, however, it was the other way around. They felt useful during the pandemic, when they had cared for and comforted sick and dying patients. Even though there was no cure, nursing, food and care were still necessary and the nurses had been essential in this work.»
The idea of anti-bac is not new

According to Ole Georg Moseng at University of Oslo, there are some clear common features between previous pandemics and covid-19, for instance when it comes to how we fight it.

«Actions like isolation of the ill, lockdown, travel restrictions, embargo on trade, quarantines and use of facemasks were also used to fight the plague in the 16th and 17th centuries», he explains.

Antibacterial hand gel is nothing new, says Mamelund. 7000 people in Norway died from tuberculosis each year between the years 1890 and 1910. The disease was fought without medicines, but with hand wash, hygiene, social distancing and public enlightenment.

«The nurses played an important role. They travelled around and educated people. They talked about the same things as the Institute of Public Health goes on about today: keep your distance, don’t drink from your neighbour’s cup and don’t ‘spit on the floor’.»

Read: “Women’s historical contributions are still ignored”

We can learn from the Spanish flu

May-Britt Ohman Nielsen at the University of Agder also see parallels.

«Today public health workers are particularly exposed to infection. This was also the case for those who treated patients with tuberculosis», she says.

«Especially the nurses, who stayed by the bedsides in the tuberculosis sanatoriums, were infected. And they were primarily women.»

But the infection also hit places with mostly men, according to Nielsen.

«In mines, boarding schools, the military, and especially the front line during the First World War, diseases spread rapidly and a large number of men were infected by tuberculosis and the Spanish flu.»

The history and experiences from previous pandemics gives us important information about how to handle today’s corona pandemic.

«The Spanish flu is the great learning model. Nearly everything we know about pandemic emergency preparedness and how the society is affected long-term, comes from this experience. How do isolation and closed down workplaces and schools affect relations between people?» she says.

«And in what ways do these measures change society in the long run? Here we can learn a lot from history.»

Translated by Cathinka Dahl Hambro

https://sciencenorway.no/covid19-diseases-gender-and-society/pandemics-affect-women-and-men-differently/1716597

The Institutional Practice: On nursing homes and hospitalizations

 IN THE TIME OF COVID THIS SEEMS TIMELY

Author:

 Gudmund Ågotnes

DOWNLOAD PDF

https://press.nordicopenaccess.no/index.php/noasp/catalog/book/12

Synopsis

The nursing home resident of today is old and frail. Despite such a frailty, many residents are hospitalized, often with the intention of life-extension. Furthermore, rates of hospitalization varies considerably between countries, regions and institutions, even within smaller geographical areas. Even though relating to the same structural framework and conditions, distance to hospitals for instance, some nursing homes hospitalize considerably more than others.

In this book, variation of hospitalization from nursing homes is analyzed and discussed, based on fieldwork from six institutions. Decisions concerning whether to hospitalize or not, are seen as relating to general regimes of practices at nursing homes; called The institutional practice.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Gudmund Ågotnes

Gudmund Ågotnes holds a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Bergen, Norway, and currently holds the position of postdoc at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. Through an empirical focus on the health- and care sector, and nursing homes in particular, Ågotnes´research have covered themes such as the logic of practice within the health sector, organizational features of care work, multiculturalism and variation in services and practice. Ågotnes has particularly addressed the issue of cross-national comparison within the health- and care sector and has carried out research in Norway, the United States, Canada and the UK.

Men in Manual Occupations: Changing Lives in Times of Change

Author:

 Kristoffer Chelsom Vogt

FULL BOOK PDF

https://press.nordicopenaccess.no/index.php/noasp/catalog/book/10

Synopsis

A shortage of skilled workers is currently emerging in many countries. Yet public discourse and much research literature convey the impression that manual labor is somehow outmoded, requiring competencies that are no longer necessary in today’s «post-industrial, information-based society». The question of how to achieve the right balance between different types of work in a society is one that transcends national borders.

This book challenges received thinking in the areas of work and education. It does so by presenting novel evidence on the lives and thoughts of men skilled in male-dominated, manual occupations in Norway. The heart of the book is comprised of extracts from life-story interviews in which workers, in their own vivid and vigorous language, talk about their experiences with work and education over the course of their lives. Detailed exploration of opportunities and constraints in individuals’ lives form the basis for a critical discussion of often unnoticed, exclusionary consequences of ongoing social change.

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About the book

«Through cohort comparison and life story interviews Vogt offers a richly nuanced account of the changing social experiences of men in manual occupations over the past 50 years. His book provides a fascinating analysis of the links between lived experiences and social structural change. It also raises important questions about how we see the relationship between education, work and knowledge in 21st century societies».

Sarah Irwin, Professor of Sociology, University of Leeds (UK).

«The subject of Vogt's book is the important and timely one of ideas of the post-industrial, knowledge, and information society, as characterizing present-day industrial societies. He subjects these ideas to a forceful and thoroughgoing critique, based on detailed empirical work among a variety of Norwegian workers».

Krishan Kumar, Professor, University of Virginia (USA).

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Kristoffer Chelsom Vogt

Kristoffer Chelsom Vogt (b. 1982) holds a PhD from the Department of Sociology, University of Bergen, Norway. He was a postdoc on the project Intergenerational Transmission in the Transition to Adulthood (funded by the Norwegian Research Council). Vogt’s research interests lie in the intersection between life course research and research concerning education, work, class, youth transitions, family and gender. He has published on topics ranging from vocational education, early school leaving, youth transitions, post-industrial theory, class analysis, gender segregation and intergenerational relations. Vogt is Associate Professor at the Depatment of Sociology, University of Bergen. 

Prison, Architecture and Humans

Volume editor: Elisabeth Fransson, Francesca Giofrè, Berit Johnsen
Chapter authors: Gudrun Brottveit, Stefano Catucci, Rosalba D’Onofrio, Pier Matteo Fagnoni, Inger Marie Fridhov, Loredana Giani, Linda Grøning, Yngve Hammerlin, Franz James, John K., Livia Porro, Tore Rokkan, Ferdinando Terranova, Elio Trusiani

Synopsis


What is prison architecture and how can it be studied? How are concepts such as humanism, dignity and solidarity translated into prison architecture? What kind of ideologies and ideas are expressed in various prison buildings from different eras and locations? What is the outside and the inside of a prison, and what is the significance of movement within the prison space? What does a lunch table have to do with prison architecture? How do prisoners experience materiality in serving a prison sentence? These questions are central to the texts presented in this anthology.

Prison, Architecture and Humans is the result of a collaboration between researchers and architects from Italy, Norway and Sweden. It presents new approaches to prison architecture and penological research by focusing on prison design, prison artefacts, everyday prison life and imprisoned bodies. The book will be of interest to students, researchers, architects and politicians.

FULL BOOK PDF https://press.nordicopenaccess.no/index.php/noasp/catalog/book/31

CHAPTERS (PDF TO DOWNLOAD)

Chapter 1: Prison Architecture as a Field of Study: A Multidisciplinary Contribution
Elisabeth Fransson, Francesca Giofrè, Berit Johnsen

Chapter 2: Humanity Rather than Materialism – A Short Essay About the Prison Environment
John K.

Chapter 3: Prisons Between Territory and Space: A Comparative Analysis Between Prison Architecture in Italy and Norway
Francesca Giofrè, Livia Porro, Elisabeth Fransson

Chapter 4: Movement in the Prison Landscape: Leisure Activities – Inside, Outside and In-between
Berit Johnsen

Chapter 5: Prisons, Cities, and Urban Planning. The Rebibbia Prison in Rome
Elio Trusiani, Rosalba D’Onofrio

Chapter 6: Prisons and Architecture. The Italian Framework
Francesca Giofrè

Chapter 7: The City Confined
Pier Matteo Fagnoni

Chapter 8: “It’s important to not lose myself” Beds, Carceral Design and Women’s Everyday Life within Prison Cells
Franz James

Chapter 9: The Lunch Table. Prison Architecture, Action-forces and the Young Imprisoned Body
Elisabeth Fransson

Chapter 10: The Becoming of Punishment as an Unpredictable and Moveable Torment
Gudrun Brottveit

Chapter 11: In Prison at Home: How Does the Home Situation Influence the Effect of a Sentence with Electronic Monitoring (EM)?
Tore Rokkan

Chapter 12: Materiality, Topography, Prison and ‘Human Turn’– A Theoretical Short Visit
Yngve Hammerlin

Chapter 13: Penal Ideology and Prison Architecture
Inger Marie Fridhov, Linda Grøning

Chapter 14: Inputs in the Design of Prisons
Ferdinando Terranova

Chapter 15: The Evolution of Italian Penitentiary Legislation. Rehabilitation as an Aim of Sentencing and Prisons. A Possible Combination?
Loredana Giani

Chapter 16: The Prison Beyond Its Theory Between Michel Foucault’s Militancy and Thought
Stefano Catucci

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Elisabeth Fransson


Elisabeth Fransson is a sociologist and Associate Professor at the University College of Norwegian Correctional Service in Norway. Her particular research interests are various forms of response towards children and youth, such as state-funded child welfare institutions, and in later years prisons. She focuses on socio-material contexts, everyday prison life, professional ideologies and practices, and affects and effects on the imprisoned body. Fransson’s research includes multidisciplinary collaboration as well as co-writing with prisoners. Methodologically she experiments with various forms of qualitative research. Her current research includes children and youths in Norwegian prisons as well as local prison practices regarding progression and reentry into society. Together with Francesca Geofré she is responsible for the PriArchH network. Fransson has published articles in The Palgrave Handbook of Prison Ethnography and Psyke & Logos.
Francesca Giofrè


Francesca Giofrè, Architect, PhD, Associate Professor of the Technology of Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture, Department of Planning, Design, Technology of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome. Visiting professor at many international universities, her research areas are: innovation in the design and building process, design for all and, recently, healthy cities. The research projects within this framework are on health and social architecture and their environment. She is a Member of the Interuniversity Research Centre TESIS, Systems and Technologies for Health Care Buildings. Together with Elisabeth Fransson she is responsible for the PriArcH network. She made many feasibility design studies in the field of architecture for health, and she has published various papers, articles and books with national and international publishers.
Berit Johnsen


Berit Johnsen holds a PhD in sports and is Associate Professor and Head of the Research Department at KRUS. Besides being interested in leisure activities, bodies and movement in prison, she is currently involved in studies of the quality of prison life, preventive detention and prison staff professionalism. It is in the interdisciplinary approach and cooperation characterizing these projects that she finds the potential and inspiration for her research. Johnsen has alone and along with others published several papers and articles within the field of penology. She is a member of the PriArcH network, and she is, at the policy level, involved in the building of a new prison in Norway – Agder prison.
Gudrun Brottveit


Gudrun Brottveit is a criminologist and Associate Professor in Psychosocial Work and Welfare Studies at the University College of Østfold. Her research interests are related to critical criminology, the materiality of punishment, professional practices focusing on interpersonal meetings, subject ontology and body phenomenology. Brottveit has been responsible for various qualitative research projects and has participated in several national and international multidisciplinary research collaborations. Her current research includes user involved collaboration with vulnerable young people and their meeting with child welfare, as well as and with prisoners on their struggle to be seen as ordinary people. Brottveit has published articles in Max Planck-Institut für Auslândisches und Internationales Strafrecht, Psyke & Logos and Vulnerable Groups & Inclusion.
Stefano Catucci


Stefano Catucci is Associate Professor at Sapienza University of Rome. He teaches aesthetics at the University of Rome “Sapienza”. He has published writings on early twentieth century German and French philosophy and is the author of an Introduction to Foucault reprinted several times (ed. Laterza). He has also published the books La filosofia critica di Husserl (Husserl’s Philosophy: A Critical Theory, 1995), Per una filosofia povera (Towards a Philosophy of Poverty, 2003) and Imparare dalla Luna (Learning from the Moon, 2013). Among his recent published works are: Preliminari a un’estetica della plastica (2014), L’opera d’arte e la sua ombra (2015), and La linea del crimine (The Line of Crime, 2016), a study of Foucault’s short essay La vie des hommes infâmes (The Lives of Infamous Men, 1977). He has created and organized meetings on “Philosophy and Music” at the Biennale Musica in Venice (2006 and 2007) and the “States-General of Arts” in Florence (2011).
Rosalba D’Onofrio


Rosalba D’Onofrio is an Assistant Professor in Urban Planning at the University of Camerino, where she teaches Urban Planning. She has conducted extensive research in the field of environmental and landscape urban design, including: LIFE+ Natura “SUN LIFE”; FAR Research Quality of the Landscape and Quality of Life in the Sustainable Adriatic City”, among other projects. Her current research focuses on the relationship between urban planning, well-being and the health of cities with some national and international publications such as: R. D’Onofrio, E. Trusiani (2017), Città, salute e benessere, F. Angeli, Roma; R. D’ Onofrio, E. Trusiani (2017), Urban Planning for Healthy European Cities, Springer.
Pier Matteo Fagnoni


Pier Matteo Fagnoni graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Florence in 1995 and received a PhD in the Technology of Architecture in 2000 from Sapienza University of Rome. He serves as a Contract Professor in Technology in Florence and Rome. The favored field of interest for Pier Matteo Fagnoni is connected to organization and management. In recent years he has often worked as Project Manager managing investments from foreign companies. In 2002 he founded the “Fagnoni & Associati” architecture firm, with Raffaella Fagnoni and Daniele Desii. F&A is a team that has over twenty years of experience together. They work in every sector pertaining to architecture and design mainly relating to public structures providing social, community and welfare services.
Inger Marie Fridhov


Inger Marie Fridhov is a theologian and criminologist. She has been working with crime, crime prevention, prison and prisoners for the last 35 years - both as a scientist and as an administrator of cultural and rehabilitation projects. She has written several reports and been a co-writer of many books in this field.
Loredana Giani


Loredana Giani is Full Professor of Administrative Law at the European University of Rome. Author of several books and more than 70 articles, her main research interests are related to the organisational profile of public administrations and the legal aspects regarding the guarantee of fundamental rights mainly in relation to public services. Giani’s research includes interdisciplinary subjects in educational law and subjects related to the implementation of the precautionary and prevention principles within the programming of the activities of public administrations, especially in relation to extreme events (such as earthquakes) for the construction of resilience processes.
Linda Grøning


Linda Grøning is Professor at the Law Faculty, University of Bergen. She received her Juris Dr. title in 2008 at the Law Faculty in Lund, Sweden, and has since published extensively in the research areas of criminal law and criminal justice. Gröning is Project Leader for the research project The Functionality of the Criminal Justice System, and Leader for the research group in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure at the Faculty of Law in Bergen.
Yngve Hammerlin


Yngve Hammerlin is Dr. Philos, Associate Professor, researcher and author. He specializes in four subjects: 1. suicide; 2. violence/power; 3. prison research; and 4. human values, epistemology, methodology, ontology and ethics. He has been working on everyday sociology and everyday philosophy since the late 1970s. More recently, he has worked on topographic turn, newsociomaterialism and the human turn within sociology and philosophy. In particular, the spatial turn and sociomateriality are key ontological, methodical and theoretical concepts. He represents the tradition of critical sociology and social-philosophy. His studies are based on different philosophical and professional traditions. From the early 1980s, he has studied everyday life in Norwegian prisons, their sociological and sociomaterial conditions, and the ideological basis of the prison system. He has written several books and articles about suicide, violence, prison-systems and human values and perspectives, as well as epistemological, ontological and ethical problems. Activity theory, critical sociology and critical psychology, existential philosophy, phenomenology, critical situational philosophy and practical research (developed within critical psychology) have been fundamental to his studies. Thereby, it should be possible to create a comprehensive view of the offender, and humans in general, which can be understood in a dialectic and internalrelationship with the sociomateriality of everyday living conditions. Hammerlin also holds a degree from Statens kunst- og håndverksskole (now The Oslo National Academy of the Arts).
Franz James


Franz James is a multi-tasking Ph.D. student and practicing product/furniture designer. As partner in a design company he works with interior objects for closed environments, such as prisons and psychiatric hospitals. James is currently on leave from his position as Associate Professor in Furniture Design at HDK - Academy of Design and Craft, University of Gothenburg, to do a Ph.D. in design with the project Carceral design: Understanding the meaning and impact of objects, furniture and interior design in institutional spaces of incarceration and care. The dichotomy between design for wellbeing and/or security is critically examined in his work, as well as terms like ‘home’, ‘noninstitutional’, and ‘normality’. James is also engaged in an interdisciplinary research project concerning the meaning of the physical environment in the Swedish state’s special residential homes for young people with psychosocial problems, substance abuse and criminal behaviour.
John K.


John K. is a pseudonym. As of this writing (January 2018) John K. is serving a sentence in an open prison. He began keeping a diary when first incarcerated and subsequently joined a collaborative writing project together with researchers. He continues to write and is still contributing to prison research. His research has been presented at conferences, and now, in this book.
Livia Porro


Livia Porro is an architect who has been dealing with inclusive design since her Master thesis (Center for Education and Rehabilitation at La Boca, Buenos Aires, 2013). She is currently completing her PhD in Engineering-based Architecture and Urban Planning at the Faculty of Engineering, at Sapienza University of Rome. Her research focuses on defining design criteria for residential facilities for adults with autism spectrum disorders, by taking into account how specific perceptual and cognitive features result in a peculiar system of architectural and technological requirements. She contributes to research and teaching activities led by Professor Francesca Giofrè (course in the Technology of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome).
Tore Rokkan


Tore Rokkan is an Associate Professor working as a Researcher in the Research Department at the University College of Norwegian Correctional Service. His research interest is in the field of change and development. His focus is on professionals’ and organizations’ cooperation and competence in developing and implementing new policy and practice. He is also interested in new methods and designs in order to create new knowledge in the field of corrections. Previous experience includes research in healthcare organizations and drug rehabilitation, studying cooperation between governmental and non-governmental organizations. He has also been involved in the development and evaluation of several projects and programmes in the prison and probation service over the last 15 years: cooperation between health and social services, implementation of Electronic Monitoring (EM), evaluation of different cognitive programmes and education of staff. Recent research involves studies on foreign inmates serving their sentence in Norway and inmates serving their Norwegian sentence in other countries. This transnational prisoner is a new challenge for correctional services in all European countries.
Ferdinando Terranova


Ferdinando Terranova has been Full Professor of the Technology of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome. He was Director of the Department of Innovation Technology in Architecture and the Culture of Environment – ITACA, Sapienza University of Rome (2004-2007). He was Director (2004-2009) of the Level II Master in Architecture for Health for Developing Countries, financed by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is an expert in the field of programming and the planning of complex building, with a special focus on healthcare and social care architecture, and in the field of Italian building production policy. Since 1989 he has made many feasibility studies, projects, guideline and research studies on healthcare and social care building. He has published more than 100 books, papers and articles. He has been the editor of many book chains and journals.
Elio Trusiani


Elio Trusiani is an architect, PhD, Associate Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Camerino and Professor at the Specialisation School of “Beni Architettonici e Paesaggio” Sapienza University of Rome. Visiting professor at many international universities, his fields of applied research are: town planning, urban regeneration and cultural landscape planning with a focus on emerging regions and developing countries. His most recent field of research is the relationship between urban planning and health. He has published books, essays and articles on these topics with national and international publishers.

Coconut oil threatens more species than palm oil

New research finds that coconut production threatens a lot more endangered species than initially thought.

 (Photo: Perfect Lazybones / Shutterstock / NTB scanpix)

Coconut oil is often hailed as an environmentally friendly alternative to, for example, palm oil, but new research shows that it actually threatens more species than the controversial palm oil. How to choose environmentally friendly vegetable oils in a world full of disinformation?

Cathrine Glosli COMMUNICATION ADVISOR
NMBU, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Monday 06. july 2020 - 

Coconut oil is used in a wide variety of products, both in food and cosmetics. The oil is hailed by many as both healthy and environmentally friendly, and it is often mentioned as an alternative to palm oil.

However, new research shows that coconut oil is nowhere near as environmentally friendly as widely assumed, and that it actually threatens more animal and plant species than other vegetable oils.

"Our research shows that coconut production threatens a lot more endangered species than initially thought, and consequently there is a lot of confusion about the production of vegetable oils and which ones that actually can be considered environmentally friendly," says Professor Douglas Sheil from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).

He is one of several researchers behind a new international study that deals with the production of vegetable oils and the effects these crops have on nature and the environment.

Affects many species

According to the study, coconut oil production affects 20 endangered species per million litre produced oil. This is higher than other vegetable oils, such as palm oil (3.8 species per million litres), olives (4.1) and soybean (1.3).

Why is the coconut so bad for biodiversity? The main reason is that it is mostly cultivated on tropical islands with a rich diversity of species and many native species found nowhere else.

The effect on endangered species is usually measured by the number of species affected per area of land used - and according to this calculation, palm oil is worse than coconut.

Global map showing the dominant oil crop per grid-cell. Oil levels in the bottles represents the number of species threatened by each oil crop per million tons of oil produced.

Threatening endangered species

The researchers have gone through all the species in the IUCN Red List, the official red list of the world's endangered species. From the long inventory of 100,000 endangered species, they have filtered out all who are considered endangered by the cultivation of palm oil, maize, coconut, peanuts, olives, rapeseed, soy and/or cotton.

They have then linked this information with crop-specific data on how many hectares are harvested by the different crop types per land area globally.

Based on this, they could put a value on the number of endangered species per million tonnes of oil produced.

Here the coconut production came out worse than expected, and considerably worse than what is widely believed.

Food production: the backside of the story

Few, if any, human activities have changed the world more than agriculture. An ever-increasing human population growth and need for food, feed and biofuels has meant that arable land and grazing land now cover over 40% of the globe's total land area. Which consequently has large effects on the climate and biological diversity.

Coconut cultivation is thought to have contributed to the extinction of a number of island species, including the Marianne white-eye in the Seychelles and the Solomon Islands’ Ontong Java flying fox.

The Sangihe Tarsier is one of the species that is threatened by deforestation and clearing of ground vegetation for coconut production. 

(Photo: Stenly Pontolawokang)

Species not yet extinct but threatened by coconut production include the Balabac mouse-deer, which lives on three Philippine islands, and the Sangihe tarsier, a primate living on the Indonesian island of Sangihe.

"The most important take away from the study is not that coconut oil is so much worse than other vegetable oils", says Professor Douglas Sheil. Rather, consumers need to realize that all agricultural commodities have negative environmental impacts. (Photo: Private)

Define “eco-friendly”

In recent years, there has been an increasing trend that environmentally conscious consumers are actively looking for and favouring "environmentally friendly" products.

“The challenge is that the information about what constitutes eco-friendly is picked from unreliable sources,” says Sheil.

Producers, merchants, dealers, governments and interest groups - all are vying to tell the consumers what they should spend their money on.

“The result of this is that the information is often both contradictory and confusing,” he comments.

All crops have consequences

"The most important thing about this study is not that coconut oil is so much worse than other types of vegetable oils,” Sheil explains.

The researchers note that olives and other crops also raise concerns.

“However, it is that we as a society need to improve the information stream to the consumer," he continues.

“Consumers must realize that all our agricultural commodities, and not just those from tropical areas, have negative environmental impacts.”

“There is a need for increased transparency and better information. We must make it easier to act in an environmentally friendly manner, but the information must also be credible.”

Reference:

Meijaard et al. 2020. Coconut oil, conservation and the conscientious consumer. Current Biology.

DOI & URL: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.05.059

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)30746-6

THIS ARTICLE IS PRODUCED AND FINANCED BY THE NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES (NMBU) - READ MORE

Where the wild things are: Scientists map and forecast apex predator populations at unprecedented scale

Findings will help wildlife managers track and predict the dynamics of large carnivore populations.

Brown bear. (Photo: Staffan Widstrand Photography)

Cathrine Glosli COMMUNICATION ADVISOR
NMBU, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Monday 16. november 2020 - 21:00

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), together with national and international collaborators, have developed statistical methods that allow mapping and forecasting of wildlife populations across borders.

With this information, researchers can now track the detailed dynamics of entire populations across unprecedented spatial scales, without being limited to small and localized parts of populations.
Population size and distribution

A vital part of wildlife management is knowledge about the population dynamics and distribution of wild species. Large carnivores are one of the most controversial topics in wildlife management. A landscape-level approach to wildlife monitoring, that tracks and forecasts wildlife populations across political jurisdictions, can help humans better manage and coexist with apex predators.

Richard Bischof (NMBU) and colleagues asked if wildlife population dynamics could be monitored and forecast through space and time like the weather, at unprecedented spatial scales that are relevant to conservation and management.
Non-invasive and large-scale monitoring

“The way we tend to study populations is a bit like looking at an elephant through a microscope,” says Bischof.

“We can understand fine details but find it difficult to make out the entire shape.”

Modern survey methods like genetic sampling allow ecologists to monitor wildlife effectively, without having to capture and handle animals. Sources of genetic material left behind by animals, such as feces, urine, and hair, allow identification of species and individuals. Armed with this information, researchers can now track the detailed dynamics of entire populations across large spatial expanses, instead of being limited to a small and localized parts of populations.

Annual maps of population densities of brown bears, grey wolves, and wolverines in Scandinavia from 2012 to 2018. (Photo credit: Staffan Widstrand Photography (bear); Kjetil Kolbjørnsrud/Shutterstock (wolf); Karel Bartik/Shutterstock (wolverine).)

From scats to maps

During the past two decades, Swedish and Norwegian authorities, with substantial help from volunteer citizen scientists, have amassed tens of thousands of DNA samples of brown bears, grey wolves, and wolverines across Scandinavia.

Using these data and advanced analytical models, the team lead by Bischof was able, for the first time, to produce detailed maps of the population density of the three species across their range in Scandinavia. These maps give a new perspective on wildlife populations as surfaces that change over time. The results also take into account imperfect detection.

“Wildlife surveys rarely detect every individual.” according to Bischof.

“So, to estimate population size, we cannot simply count the number of animals for which DNA is found. Our models correct for this.”
International team of experts

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences collaborated with scientists at other institutions in Norway, Sweden, France, and the United States.

Bischof emphasizes “International collaboration was essential for the success of the project, given that bears, wolves, and wolverines live in transboundary populations in Scandinavia that extend across the Swedish-Norwegian border.”

“The analysis involving thousands of DNA samples across such a huge spatial extent required substantial development in computing. Advances made during the project will now help others facing the challenges of large-scale ecological analysis” concludes Perry de Valpine at the University of California Berkeley, a collaborator and co-author of the study.

Reference:

Bischof et al. 2020. “Estimating and forecasting spatial population dynamics of apex predators using transnational genetic monitoring”. PNAS - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

An ice-free oasis in the Arctic sheltered life during the last ice age
Researchers from Norway and the UK have found evidence for ice-free corridors in the Arctic where life flourished during the Ice Age.

This is probably what the Arctic looked like during the Last Glacial Maximum, when large parts of Scandinavia were covered with ice. (Photo: By Ittiz - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Nancy Bazilchuk
based on an article by Elise Kjørstad
Monday 22. october 2018 - 06:25


The Arctic during the last ice age was essentially a desert. Land and ocean were both hidden under a thick sheet of ice. But scientists have long wondered if there were ice-free openings between land ice and sea ice, called polynyas, in which life could flourish.

Now, researchers from the Geological Survey of Norway, and the UK, report evidence of these ice-free gaps from 20,000 years ago, during what is called the Last Glacial Maximum.

The Last Glacial Maximum was a time when much of Europe was covered with thick ice, more than three kilometres thick in Norway. Ice stretched from the North Pole and across the entire Barents Sea and over large parts of the Norwegian Sea. This environment was not particularly hospitable to plants or animals.

But life appears to have persisted in long, narrow, ice-free gaps at the meeting between land and sea ice.
Several hundred kilometres long

ILLUSTRATION: Arctic oasis in front of the NW Eurasian ice sheet during the last Ice Age, 20.000 years ago (from Knies et al. 2018, Nature Communications/Irene Lundquist)

The researchers relied on sediment samples taken from a long stretch of ocean extending from the southwestern Barents Sea, north to Svalbard and beyond, and then eastwards. The researchers used dating techniques to determine the age of the sediments and then examined the contents of the samples. They looked for signs of life, such as small sea creatures and algae.


The researchers found many biological remains as evidence of life, showing that there must have been ice-free openings or polynyas where the sea ice met the land. This ice-free corridor must have stretched for hundreds of kilometres and existed for more than 5,000 years.

"By finding chemical fossils of algae that live in the open ocean and in sea ice, we have shown that polynyas must have existed during the last ice age," said Simon Belt, professor of chemistry at Plymouth University, UK, in a press release from Norway's geological survey.

The findings have now been published in Nature Communications.

The Sun’s rays as the source of life

Jochen Knies from the Geological Survey of Norway and the Center for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate at The Arctic University of Norway, led the Norwegian side of the study. He said these open passages were of great importance in allowing life to survive in the Arctic during the last ice age.

"When the ocean is covered with ice, sunlight can’t penetrate through the ice cover, which creates very difficult conditions for organisms to survive. And the land was covered with kilometres of ice in all directions— it was like a desert,” Knies says.

The ice-free areas were able to foster life on a microscopic scale, which in turn would form the basis for an ecosystem and other types of life, he says.

It was likely that seals, walrus and polar bears hunted for food in these ice-free passages, which made it possible for them to survive the Last Glacial Maximum.

The researchers don’t know if there were also polynyas along Norway’s rugged coast, since they did not examine sediment cores from the area. But it is certainly possible, they say.
Wind and warmer water

Polynyas form with the help of strong winds that blow from the land to the sea, combined with ocean circulation that brings warm water to the ocean’s surface.

"Winds that form over big inland ice masses can blow sea ice away. At the same time, we know there was a warm water current that flowed north during the ice age,” says Knies.

Today, polynyas are quite common around the North Pole and Greenland.

"We see these oases forming regularly, and with them, an explosion of life,” he says.

But global warming has made for an opposite situation in the Arctic, something the researchers also addressed in their article.

When the ice sheets began melting catastrophically at the end of the ice age, the sudden influx of fresh water halted the formation of polynyas, marine productivity dropped drastically, and the sea ice covered the entire Nordic Seas. This dramatic drop in productivity didn’t recover for roughly 2,000 years, they write in the study.

In the press release, the research is described as demonstrating the vulnerability of marine ecosystems in the northern oceans to periods of rapid climate change, but also their adaptability to various extreme climate states.

----------------
Read more in the Norwegian version of this article at forskning.no


Scientific links
Jochen Knies m.fl: Nordic Seas polynyas and their role in preconditioning marine productivity during the Last Glacial Maximum. Nature Communications, 27. september 2018. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-06252-8.


External links
Jochen Knies


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How the last ice age changed Norway
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Life after the Ice Age
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Danish pollen reveals new interglacial period
New analysis of rare Danish soil layers reveals a hitherto unknown temperate period during the Ice Age.



Tiny gravitational changes indicate loss of glacial ice
Researchers have discovered by chance that the ice of the Folgefonna Glacier has thinned by seven metres.

Facing Megafires: Forests as Commons
Benjamin Joyeux
Joëlle Zask

JUNE 2020




From the Amazon to California, from Siberia to the Congo Basin, from Portugal and Greece to Australia, fires on an unprecedented scale – megafires – are spreading dangerously across the globe. Devastating everything in their path these megafires, Dantean symbols of a natural world that is more imperilled than ever, are still strangely absent from political thinking at this time of climate crisis. Some scientists have now started using the term “Pyrocene” rather than Anthropocene to describe our geological epoch.

Benjamin Joyeux: How did you become interested in fires and megafires?

Joëlle Zask: I once saw a forest that had just burnt down, and its disappearance made me think about what the landscape means to people. The loss of a landscape produces a sort of helplessness: the landscape is not just a backdrop we gaze at but is an integral part of ourselves. Fire destroys slices of history that never come back. This irreversibility is what causes the distress felt by fire victims. I was also astonished that a phenomenon as impactful as forest fires has not been sufficiently debated, both among environmental scientists and environmentalists, and in public opinion.

Are fires a political issue?

They are more indications of the dysfunction in representation, of which the consequences are very political. Fires can only be controlled or prevented by a change in this respect. There are huge social and political questions to consider surrounding forest fires today. Yet, we still talk about them as though they are ordinary news items. Why? I think that in our minds lies a fear, a reticence. There have been catastrophic fires in the past, such as the great fire of Lisbon, which destroyed the city in 1755. Today’s fires are “catastrophic” and “political” in that they reveal the state of planetary imbalance and the huge role of humanity in this, a responsibility that must of course be clear and detailed because not everybody is equally responsible. This responsibility is symbolised by the fact that to start a fire, all it takes is to strike a match. Just as we cannot stop a tsunami or earthquake, neither can we stop a huge forest fire. In Australia in early 2020, just as in California and Siberia in 2019, we see the impotence of stakeholders on the ground in the face of these megafires.


This responsibility is symbolised by the fact that to start a fire, all it takes is to strike a match. Just as we cannot stop a tsunami or earthquake, neither can we stop a huge forest fire.

What’s the difference between fires and megafires, and why can’t we stop them?

There is no standard definition of megafires. They are recent phenomena that take many forms and are characterised by the fact that we cannot stop them. We should distinguish them from seasonal fires and controlled burns, which are relatively easy to manage. Megafires are clearly related to global warming and are becoming increasingly intense and frequent as temperatures rise and periods of drought last longer. For there to be fire, there needs to be fuel, a very dry environment, and wind. These three conditions are today combining in frightening proportions. Fire seasons that used to last two to three months can last for up to six months today. This was the case in California and the northern Mediterranean – Portugal, Spain, Greece, and the south of France – during the summer of 2017.

What is humanity’s role in the growing number and intensity of megafires?

In addition to global warming, the destruction of forests is connected to rural exodus and the disappearance of traditional forestry skills. Forests are being destroyed by new inhabitants who, not understanding them, run amok and do not manage them well.

Forests are not managed and deadwood – which is very flammable – builds up, making them vulnerable to fires. With rising temperatures come new pests that kill trees and further increase the amount of dry material. Then there is forest clearing, and industrial forests that are forests in name only. They are sprayed with phytosanitary products and are particularly fragile. The more forests are uniform and planted with non-native trees, the more they burn. For example, 70 per cent of the forest in Sweden – where fires burned fiercely in the summer of 2018 – is industrial. The trees chosen, the space between them, and the lack of diversity make forests particularly flammable.

Forest fires illustrate how issues today are intertwined, and show how ecosystems are disrupted and destroyed.

We have seen more debate about megafires since the global spate of fires in 2019 and 2020, but it is still discussed little in relation to the climate crisis as a whole. How do you explain this paradox?

The megafire phenomenon has yet to establish itself in people’s minds, even though experts are seeing it spread and boreal forests (in colder areas) are now burning too. NASA has released spine-chilling scenarios which, in the medium term, envisage blazes on every landmass.


What is also striking is its suddenness: environmental scientists know how to spot relatively slow or medium-term climate developments. But how does a sudden phenomenon like this fit into the longer timescale of general climate progression?

This phenomenon has emerged sooner than predicted. The megafire has now become a physical reality: a total and non-compartmental phenomenon. It inverses relationships with nature because it is a natural phenomenon but caused by man. What is also striking is its suddenness: environmental scientists know how to spot relatively slow or medium-term climate developments. But how does a sudden phenomenon like this fit into the longer timescale of general climate progression? Even the Anthropocene is thought of on a relatively long timescale. Yet nothing moves faster than a megafire: it destroys millions of hectares in a matter of days. All these factors explain why we have not yet managed to identify megafires as a phenomenon related to the environmental crisis.

Do you think that the narrative on fires has changed in recent years?

When I first became interested in the topic, there was a green narrative in favour of forest fires, because these fires are seasonal, natural, and therefore part of the forest’s equilibrium. But this narrative has also led to blindness. Fires can destroy forests irreversibly, as in 60 per cent of megafire cases. We are just starting to realise that the enormous fires destroying swathes of Australia, California, Portugal, and Greece are not at all beneficial for forests. That particular green narrative is outdated in this regard.

When we imagine the end of the world, like in Hollywood disaster movies, it often involves earthquakes and tsunamis but not many fires. Forest fires are rarely associated with the end of the world in the collective imagination.

This is also because fire is synonymous with home, the hearth, and wellbeing. There is a whole paradoxical imagination around fire, at once the great destroyer and the essence of life. The biological history of humanity and its evolution are linked to the use of fire, to its domestication. It is therefore difficult to think that fire, a condition for humanisation, might conflict with the chances of humankind’s survival on the planet.

What do these phenomena tell us about ourselves and our relationship with nature?

We need to take care of nature, both in an interested and disinterested way. This position conflicts with extractivism, the idea that nature is made for us and that we must exploit it as much as we can to get all we can from it. But it also conflicts with the idea that nature is naturally good and that to respect it we must step back so as not to harm or disfigure it. The preservationist narratives that argue that nature would get along very well without humans are bad for nature too. When we talk about nature, we should talk about a nature that we value, that we can make use of, whose configuration – be it aesthetic, philosophical or material – resonates with us. I do not know of a nature that is independent of the human species. What interests me are human-nature relationships where action is possible, even as this balance evolves all the time. An anthropocentric vision of nature is inevitable. So the idea of taking care of nature and stewardship is fundamental.


Our interhuman relationships would be much more democratic if we made room for the non-human world, whether you want to call this ecology or nature. Who am I as a person in a society that eats animals?

The link between animal rights and the climate crisis is gaining ground in environmentalism and is forcing us to re-imagine our relationship with non-human creatures. Should we do the same with trees and forests?

It is a good analogy because when human beings have relationships between them that take into account the non-human, animals, trees and so on, their relationships are not the same. Our interhuman relationships would be much more democratic if we made room for the non-human world, whether you want to call this ecology or nature. Who am I as a person in a society that eats animals? On the other hand, I do not personally have any wish to connect with trees or animals or to grant them a status equivalent to humans. I find that absurd.

But, in response to this megafire problem, shouldn’t we consider trees as subjects in law?

I don’t think so. Megafires are not beings but consequences, like the animals we raise to eat are. First, we must consider the interhuman framing of the issue. I don’t adhere to the Gaia hypothesis, but rather think like Noah, who didn’t give animals rights but did put them in his arc and did what God told him to do. I have my doubts about granting the status of subject to beings who do not consider themselves as such. It risks taking us back to this same idea which fools us: that in order to respect all beings and connect with them, we need to consider them equal and identical. Rather, this plurality should be incorporated into our relationships: which is what I said in La démocratie aux champs (Democracy in the Fields). Giving earthworms rights is absurd. Cultivating the soil means listening to nature, taking care of it, observing it without destroying it, and ensuring the conditions for its survival. We can do all of this without turning to the law.

What is the main message of your book?

I argue that it is by valuing, understanding, and identifying means of taking care of nature that we will save the forests. This as well as prohibiting the activities that contribute to global warming and that destroy forests and make them vulnerable. In short, limiting the activities of multinational corporations. We should also question our romantic and contemplative vision of nature. An important political message is to stop thinking that solutions will come from the top and that an expert class is needed to advise decision makers. The idea of expertise has cut off people on the ground and prevented them from having a voice. For years, small farmers have been considered bumpkins and nobodies. We are realising that, like in Australia today, the people that have been looked down on are best placed to find the right solutions. The belated discovery of ancient forestry knowledge is politically important: it is there that reside local solutions suited to the area. Fire is a global phenomenon but solutions will be local. The book starts from this relocated relationship – on the ground, between human and forest – and turns it into a framework, a paradigm for the right way to inhabit the planet. And the right way to distribute the work around the forest.

This will require a common political vision: could we not also envisage a forestry policy at European Union level?

Europe has a fundamental role to play when it comes to tackling the main drivers of global warming – like rising greenhouse gas emissions – which are almost impossible to address individually or as a group of individuals. In France, the National Forests Office and the agencies that manage forests report to the Ministry of Agriculture. This is a real problem because the Ministry of Agriculture is by no means a pioneer when it comes to the green transition. Forests should be switched to the Ministry of the Environment. What happened in the Amazon is interesting. Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro considers the forest as his own. It was the same thing with President Suharto in Indonesia, who sold “his” forest in Sumatra to the South Korean company Daewoo. These more or less neo-fascist heads of state consider themselves the owners of their countries and sell them off to the highest bidders.


States, who are supposed to protect the public interest, should follow the thinking of Elinor Ostrom and begin to see forests as common goods.

A European policy that recognises forests as a common good to be preserved is essential. There should also be a policy for protecting forests against unsuitable plantation. For example a large plantation of Douglas firs is planned in the forest of Fontainebleau near Paris, due to National Forests Office policy. Under the pretext of fighting climate change, they are going to cut down oak and ash trees to replace them with Douglas firs. Yet the Douglas fir is just biomass; it is not forest. States, who are supposed to protect the public interest, should follow the thinking of Elinor Ostrom and begin to see forests as common goods.