Avian influenza is considered a "global threat" and a biosecurity issue. How did that come to be? How did the avian influenza threat change as the virus spread? This book offers detailed, empirical accounts of avian influenza as the virus-and the knowledge about it -spread beyond Asia, from 2005 onwards. It also offers insights into how the concept of biosecurity has emerged in relation to recent disease outbreaks. Based on multi-sited fieldwork in Turkey and textual analyses, Translocal Connections of Bioinsecurity contributes to new ways of understanding text and field, the global and the local, and the secure and the insecure, as relational rather than opposed or unconnected, as enacted rather than pre-given. Dissertation. (Series: Civil Security. Documents on Security Research / Zivile Sicherheit. Schriften zum Fachdialog Sicherheitsforschung, Vol. 14) [Subject: Bioinsecurity, Avian Influenza, Security Studies]

In response to the challenges of a growing population and food security, there is an urgent need to construct a new agri-food sustainability paradigm. This book brings together an integrated range of key social science insights exploring the contributions and interventions necessary to build this framework. Building on over ten years of ESRC funded theoretical and empirical research centered at BRASS, it focuses upon the key social, economic and political drivers for creating a more sustainable food system. Themes include: regulation and governance sustainable supply chains public procurement sustainable spatial strategies associated with rural restructuring and re-calibrated urbanised food systems minimising bio-security risk and animal welfare burdens. The book critically explores the linkages between social science research and the evolving food security problems facing the world at a critical juncture in the debates associated with not only food quality, but also its provenance, vulnerability and the inherent unsustainability of current systems of production and consumption. Each chapter examines how the links between research, practice and policy can begin to contribute to more sustainable, resilient and justly distributive food systems which would be better equipped to ‘feed the world’ by 2050.

Transnational Mobility and Global Health spotlights the powerful and dynamic intersections of human movement, inequality, and health. The book explores the interacting political, economic, social, cultural, and climatic drivers of health and migration, proposing innovative ways to enhance global health and care provision in an era of transnational mobility. As health security continues to rise up the agenda in international politics, the book also analyses the political determinants of health and migration. Within the framework of key drivers of unequal mobilities, this book treats interconnected health and migration themes not covered elsewhere under one cover: health tourism, conflict-induced and other vulnerable-population movements, humanitarian crises, human rights, the health-development linkage, migrant health-care, and health-competency education. The book also considers global health vulnerabilities in the wake of climate change, and the biomedical, ethical, and governance challenges of emerging and reemerging infectious diseases. Finally, the book suggests ways of evaluating mobility-influenced health outcomes and equity impacts, and explores how the global circulation of health expertise could help to rectify care-provider shortages. The challenges to global health considered in this book are only likely to become more intense as the 21st-Century surge in transnational migration continues. Readers will gain interdisciplinary appreciation for the relevance of health for migration and of migration for global health. Researchers, students, practitioners, and policy makers interested in individual and population health, sustainable development, and migration studies will find this book a useful and inspiring guide to contemporary global challenges.

Comparative case studies are an effective qualitative tool for researching the impact of policy and practice in various fields of social research, including education. Developed in response to the inadequacy of traditional case study approaches, comparative case studies are highly effective because of their ability to synthesize information across time and space. In Rethinking Case Study Research: A Comparative Approach, the authors describe, explain, and illustrate the horizontal, vertical, and transversal axes of comparative case studies in order to help readers develop their own comparative case study research designs. In six concise chapters, two experts employ geographically distinct case studies—from Tanzania to Guatemala to the U.S.—to show how this innovative approach applies to the operation of policy and practice across multiple social fields. With examples and activities from anthropology, development studies, and policy studies, this volume is written for researchers, especially graduate students, in the fields of education and the interpretive social sciences.

"Wildlife trafficking threatens the existence of many plant and animal species and accelerates the destruction of wildlife, forests, and other natural resources. It contributes to environmental degradation, destroys unique natural habitats, and deprives many countries and their populations of scarce renewable resources. Nevertheless, preventing and supressing the illegal trade in wildlife, animal parts, and plants is presently not a priority in many countries and it remains overlooked and poorly researched. The chapters included in this volume address causes, characteristics, and actors of wildlife trafficking, analyse detection methods, and explore different international and national legal frameworks." This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

Nanotechnology is enabling applications in materials, microelectronics, health, and agriculture, which are projected to create the next big shift in production, comparable to the industrial revolution. Such major shifts always co-evolve with social relationships. This book focuses on how nanotechnologies might affect equity/equality in global society. Nanotechnologies are likely to open gaps by gender, ethnicity, race, and ability status, as well as between developed and developing countries, unless steps are taken now to create a different outcome. Organizations need to change their practices, and cultural ideas must be broadened if currently disadvantaged groups are to have a more equal position in nano-society rather than a more disadvantaged one. Economic structures are likely to shift in the nano-revolution, requiring policymakers and participatory processes to invent new institutions for social welfare, better suited to the new economic order than those of the past.

The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology presents a comprehensive and authoritative examination of the rapidly growing field of political ecology. Located at the intersection of geography, anthropology, sociology, and environmental history, political ecology is one of the most vibrant and conceptually diverse fields of inquiry into nature-society relations within the social sciences. The Handbook serves as an essential guide to this rapidly evolving intellectual landscape. With contributions from over 50 leading authors, the Handbook presents a systematic overview of political ecology’s origins, practices and core concerns, and aims to advance both ongoing and emerging debates. While there are numerous edited volumes, textbooks, and monographs under the heading ‘political ecology,’ these have tended to be relatively narrow in scope, either as collections of empirically based (mostly case study) research on a given theme, or broad overviews of the field aimed at undergraduate audiences. The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology is the first systematic, comprehensive overview of the field. With authors from North and South America, Europe, Australia and elsewhere, the Handbook of Political Ecology provides a state of the art examination of political ecology; addresses ongoing and emerging debates in this rapidly evolving field; and charts new agendas for research, policy, and activism. The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology introduces political ecology as an interdisciplinary academic field. By presenting a ‘state of the art’ examination of the field, it will serve as an invaluable resource for students and scholars. It not only critically reviews the key debates in the field, but develops them. The Handbook will serve as an excellent resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate teaching, and is a key reference text for geographers, anthropologists, sociologists, environmental historians, and others working in and around political ecology.