This commentary reflects on recent instances of anti-Asian violence and state responses to redress violence through data-driven strategies. Data collection often presents itself as an appealing strategy, due to impacted communities’ desires for evidence and metrics to substantiate political claims. Yet, data collection can bolster the carceral state. This commentary takes an antagonistic approach to policing, including the ongoing creation of data infrastructures by—and for—law enforcement through hate crimes legislation. We critically discuss the challenges and possibilities in building towards anti-carceral (...) responses amidst ongoing racial violence and crisis. (shrink)

This Element presents a philosophical exploration of the concept of the 'model organism' in contemporary biology. Thinking about model organisms enables us to examine how living organisms have been brought into the laboratory and used to gain a better understanding of biology, and to explore the research practices, commitments, and norms underlying this understanding. We contend that model organisms are key components of a distinctive way of doing research. We focus on what makes model organisms an important type of model, (...) and how the use of these models has shaped biological knowledge, including how model organisms represent, how they are used as tools for intervention, and how the representational commitments linked to their use as models affect the research practices associated with them. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

This paper aims to identify the key characteristics of model organisms that make them a specific type of model within the contemporary life sciences: in particular, we argue that the term “model organism” does not apply to all organisms used for the purposes of experimental research. We explore the differences between experimental and model organisms in terms of their material and epistemic features, and argue that it is essential to distinguish between their representational scope and representational target. We also examine (...) the characteristics of the communities who use these two types of models, including their research goals, disciplinary affiliations, and preferred practices to show how these have contributed to the conceptualization of a model organism. We conclude that model organisms are a specific subgroup of organisms that have been standardized to fit an integrative and comparative mode of research, and that it must be clearly distinguished from the broader class of experimental organisms. In addition, we argue that model organisms are the key components of a unique and distinctively biological way of doing research using models.Keywords: Experimental organism; Genetics; Model organism; Modeling; Philosophy of biology; Representation. (shrink)

The biological sciences have become increasingly reliant on so-called 'model organisms'. I argue that in this domain, the concept of a descriptive model is essential for understanding scientific practice. Using a case study, I show how such a model was formulated in a preexplanatory context for subsequent use as a prototype from which explanations ultimately may be generated both within the immediate domain of the original model and in additional, related domains. To develop this concept of a descriptive model, I (...) focus on use of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans and the wiring diagrams that were developed as models of its neural structure. In addition, implications of the concept of a descriptive model, particularly its relevance for the data-phenomena distinction as well as its relation to long-standing debates on realism, are briefly examined. (shrink)

Through an examination of the actual research strategies and assumptions underlying the Human Genome Project (HGP), it is argued that the epistemic basis of the initial model organism programs is not best understood as reasoning via causal analog models (CAMs). In order to answer a series of questions about what is being modeled and what claims about the models are warranted, a descriptive epistemological method is employed that uses historical techniques to develop detailed accounts which, in turn, help to reveal (...) forms of reasoning that are explicit, or more often implicit, in the practice of a particular field of scientific study. It is suggested that a more valid characterization of the reasoning structure at work here is a form of case-based reasoning. This conceptualization of the role of model organisms can guide our understanding and assessment of these research programs, their knowledge claims and progress, and their limitations, as well as how we educate the public about this type of biomedical research. (shrink)

We argue that individual and institutional caregivers have a defeasible moral duty to provide dependent children with plant-based diets and related education. Notably, our three arguments for this claim do not presuppose any general duty of veganism. Instead, they are grounded in widely shared beliefs about children’s interests and caregivers’ responsibilities, as well as recent empirical research relevant to children’s moral development, autonomy development, and physical health. Together, these arguments constitute a strong cumulative case against inculcating in children the dietary (...) practice of regularly eating meat (and other animal products) — a practice we call ‘carnism’. (shrink)

Although cases are central to the epistemic practices utilized within clinical medicine, they appear to be limited in their ability to provide evidence about causal relations because they provide detailed accounts of particular patients without explicit filtering of those attributes most likely to be relevant for explaining the phenomena observed. This paper uses a series of recent case reports to explore the role of cases in casual attribution in medical diagnosis. It is argued that cases are brought together by practitioners (...) to generate causal attributions and testable predictions using a manipulability view of causation. (shrink)

I present and evaluate Johann Gottfried Herder's criticisms of Kant's account of the sublime and Herder's own theory of the sublime, as presented in his work, Kalligone. Herder's account and criticisms ought to be taken seriously, I argue, as (respectively) a non-reductive, naturalist aesthetics of the sublime, and as illuminating the metaphysical, moral, and political presuppositions underlying Kant's (and Burke's) accounts of the sublime.

This essay critically examines the evolving relationship between chemistry and ecology, challenging the historical view of chemistry as purely mechanistic. It argues for a new perspective that recognises the dynamic and agentised qualities of matter. Drawing from diverse scientific and philosophical sources, it is argued that modern chemical theories can reshape how we understand life, agency, and intelligence within the material world. These insights are explored in the context of future technological innovations and ecological sustainability, emphasising the potential of ‘agentised (...) chemistry’ as a strategy for creating circular impacts. By viewing chemistry as an active agent in shaping the world, rather than a passive tool for innovation, this approach offers a more symbiotic and negotiated relationship between human development and nature, supporting a transition towards a more ecologically sustainable future. (shrink)

Within the rough ground that is the field of education there is a complex web of ethical obligations: to prepare our students for their future work; to be ethical as educators in our conduct and teaching; to the ethical principles embedded in the contexts in which we work; and given the Southern context of this work, the ethical obligations we have to this land and its First Peoples. We put out a call to colleagues whose work has been concerned with (...) the pedagogies of professional ethics, the ethical burdens of institutional injustice, and the application of ethical theory to education’s applied fields. In the responses we received it can be seen that ethical concerns in education are broad ranging, covering terrain varying from the preparation of preservice teachers, ethics in higher education, early childhood and care, educational leadership, relational and communicative ethics. Perhaps it could also be argued that this paper demonstrates Gibbon’s observation that ‘Assumptions about the particularity of this time as new and ripe with opportunity to make a difference through philosophy of education are not new and there’s much to learn from the persistence of wanting to imagine that they are’. However, while the field of ethics is perennially concerned with human relations and pedagogical interventions to improve these, the responses collected here show that educational ethics is far from static. Educational ethics is a field that continues to develop in response to changing contexts. (shrink)

The so-called "biometric-Mendelian controversy" has received much attention from science studies scholars. This paper focuses on one scientist involved in this debate, Arthur Dukinfield Darbishire, who performed a series of hybridization experiments with mice beginning in 1901. Previous historical work on Darbishire's experiments and his later attempt to reconcile Mendelian and biometric views describe Darbishire as eventually being "converted" to Mendelism. I provide a new analysis of this episode in the context of Darbishire's experimental results, his underlying epistemology, and his (...) influence on the broader debate surrounding the rediscovery and acceptance of Mendelism. I investigate various historiographical issues raised by this episode in order to reflect on the idea of "conversion" to a scientific theory. Darbishire was an influential figure who resisted strong forces compelling him to convert prematurely due to his requirements that the new theory account for particularly important anomalous facts and answer the most pressing questions in the field. (shrink)

Qualitative research provides rigorous methods not only for investigating behavioral or social issues, but can also be used for exploring epistemic issues related to science and its practices. There is growing scholarly awareness that important aspects of science can be best understood through qualitative analyses and cannot be captured using more traditional textual sources such as publications or archival documents or via more quantitative or formalized methodologies such as citation analysis or bibliometrics. Reflecting on our own research on the philosophy (...) of scientific practices, particularly on the role of model organisms in biology, we discuss some of the challenges associated with the design and conduct of qualitative research in the philosophy of science. We then explore three issues in more detail: The extent to which qualitative methods support the identification of media and spaces for the study of epistemic questions in science; the investigation of social structures particularly relevant to scientific practices and reasoning; and the conceptual and interpretative significance of analytic choices in empirical research on science. In closing, we reflect on the value of qualitative research methods for understanding scientific practices as ways to identify novel research directions, refine and augment philosophically motivated research questions, investigate the rationales and procedures through which particular scientific choices become ingrained in research, and question the implications of such habits as norms for what counts as “best practice” in particular scientific fields, all of which are topics that deserve more attention from philosophers and other scholars interested in scientific practices. (shrink)

Can we feel emotions about abstract objects, assuming that abstract objects exist? I argue that at least some emotions can have abstract objects as their intentional objects and discuss why this conclusion is not just trivially true. Through critical engagement with the work of Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt, I devote special attention to awe, an emotion that is particularly well suited to show that some emotions can be about either concrete or abstract objects. In responding to a possible objection, (...) according to which we can only feel emotions about things that we take to matter to our flourishing, and thus cannot feel emotions about causally inefficacious abstract objects, I explore how abstract objects can be relevant to human flourishing and discuss someemotions other than awe that can be about abstract objects. I finish by explaining somereasons why my conclusion matters, including the fact that it presents a challenge to perceptual theories of emotion and causal theories of intentionality. (shrink)

Background International collaborators face challenges in the design and implementation of ethical biomedical research. Evaluating community understanding of research and processes like informed consent may enable researchers to better protect research participants in a particular setting; however, there exist few studies examining community perspectives in health research, particularly in resource-limited settings, or strategies for engaging the community in research processes. Our goal was to inform ethical research practice in a biomedical research setting in western Kenya and similar resource-limited settings. Methods (...) We sought to use mabaraza , traditional East African community assemblies, in a qualitative study to understand community perspectives on biomedical research and informed consent within a collaborative, multinational research network in western Kenya. Analyses included manual, progressive coding of transcripts from mabaraza to identify emerging central concepts. Results Our findings from two mabaraza with 108 community members revealed that, while participants understood some principles of biomedical research, they emphasized perceived benefits from participation in research over potential risks. Many community members equated health research with HIV testing or care, which may be explained in part by the setting of this particular study. In addition to valuing informed consent as understanding and accepting a role in research activities, participants endorsed an increased role for the community in making decisions about research participation, especially in the case of children, through a process of community consent. Conclusions Our study suggests that international biomedical research must account for community understanding of research and informed consent, particularly when involving children. Moreover, traditional community forums, such as mabaraza in East Africa, can be used effectively to gather these data and may serve as a forum to further engage communities in community consent and other aspects of research. (shrink)

This study focuses on the concept of a 'model organism' in the biomedical sciences through an historical and philosophical examination of research with the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. I explore the choice of C. elegans in the mid-1960s, showing a rich context existed within which the organism was selected as the focus for a molecular biological research program, including an experimental life prior to Sydney Brenner's work. I argue that this choice can be seen as an obvious outcome of what was (...) a complex search procedure, and that the success of the 'worm project' depended not only on organismal choice but also on the conceptual and institutional framework at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge within which it was pursued. Examination of C. elegans work in the late 1960s through the early 1980s illuminates several additional theses. Although development and behavior were the general areas of interest for the project, the original goals and proposed methodology were extremely vague. As the project evolved, which investigations proved to be tractable using the worm depended not only on which methodologies were fruitful but also on the interests and skills of early workers. Much of the power of C. elegans as a model organism can be traced historically to the investment of resources which resulted in an unprecedented, complete description of the organism, and represented a return to a more naturalistic biological tradition. In light of the historical study, I develop a philosophical analysis of C. elegans as a model organism through exploration of the three kinds of modeling with the worm: modeling of structures, processes, and information. I expand the notion of a descriptive model, arguing that C. elegans is best understood as a prototype of the metazoa, and that C. elegans as a model organism has been not only heuristically valuable, but also essential to this research project particularly in its pre-explanatory stages. I conclude by suggesting that more investigation of descriptive prototypes such as those in the worm project must be done to capture important aspects of the biomedical sciences that will be neglected if explanatory models are the sole focus in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

This article unpacks a particular use of ‘cases’ within developmental biology, namely as a means of describing the typical or canonical patterns of phenomena. The article explores how certain cases have come to be established within the field and argues that although they were initially selected for reasons of convenience or ease of experimental manipulation, these cases come to serve as key reference points within the field because of the epistemological structures imposed on them by the scientists using them and, (...) hence, become usable in a wider variety of circumstances including future theory development. (shrink)

People with disabilities (PWD) comprise a significant part of the population yet experience some of the most profound health disparities. Among the greatest barriers to quality care are inadequate health professions education related to caring for PWD. Drawing upon the expertise of health professions educators in medicine, public health, nursing, social work, and physician assistant programs, this forum showcases innovative methods for teaching core disability skills and concepts grounded in disability studies and the health humanities. Each of the essays offers (...) practical guidance for developing curricular interventions appropriate for students at various levels of training and familiarity with disability to be implemented in classroom discussions, case-based learning, lectures, panels, and clinical simulations across the full spectrum of pre-health and health professions education. (shrink)

Bioethics has entered a new era: as many commentators have noted, the familiar mantra of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice has proven to be an overly simplistic framework for understanding problems that arise in modern medicine, particularly at the intersection of public policy and individual preferences. A tradition of liberal pluralism grounds respect for individual preferences and affirmation of competing conceptions of the good. But we struggle to maintain (or at times explicitly reject) this tradition in the face of individual (...) preferences that we find distasteful, suspect, or even repugnant, especially where the broader social good or respect for equality is at stake. Directed donation presents us with such a dilemma: can we uphold the right of self-determination through respect of individual preferences regarding disposition of transplantable organs while at the same time maintaining an allocation system that reflects values of equity and justice claimed to underlie the socially negotiated practice of transplantation? Or are some preferences simply to be deemed unethical and not respected, even if that leads to a reduction in the number of transplantable organs available and to an apparent disregard for the autonomous decisions of the recently deceased? (shrink)

Rachel Loewen Walker's original study of Deleuze's theory of temporality critically expands our understanding of non-linear time through engagement with queer theory and new feminist materialisms. Walker draws on the notion of non-linear time in Deleuze's work to advance a conception of 'the living present' as a critical juncture through which new meanings and activism in the fields of feminism, environment, and queerness may be realised. Using literary texts by Jeanette Winterson, and philosophical texts by Julia Kristeva and Luce (...) Irigaray, Walker reflects on monomythic stories about gender, sexuality, and identity in the context of rapid climate change, and posthumanist politics to tread new ground for Deleuzian studies of time. Speaking to and from feminist, queer, environmental, trans, and crip political movements, Walker uses Deleuze to argue for a 'lived present' which is both mutable and embodied. Such characteristics are presented as essential components in the construction of meaning that is not bound by a static present, past or future. Queer and Deleuzian Temporalities pinpoints the importance of feminist and queer theory to a critical re-evaluation of time. Through a wide-ranging analysis we are able to see how everyone is embedded within rather than outside of time, opening up the possibility for imagining and realising alternate futures both for ourselves and the environment. (shrink)

Drawn from the authors' experiences in the UK, Australia and mainland Europe and with contributions from across the globe, this clear and accessible book includes a wide range of examples. The authors show the reader how to: identify ethical issues which may arise with any research project, gain informed consent, provide information in the right way to participants, and present and disseminate findings in line with ethical guidelines.

This paper argues that Kant 's account of the "ideal of beauty " in paragraph 17 of the Critique of Judgment is not only a plausible account of one kind of beauty, but also that it can address some of our moral qualms concerning the aesthetic evaluation of persons, including our psychological propensity to take a person's beauty to represent her moral character.

The foreword to Ken Taylor’s, Referring to the World, contains the text of a Facebook post from the day he completed a draft of the book—also the day of his death. Taylor writes that the book began its life ‘years and years and years ago’ as a short, opinionated introduction to the theory of reference, but became more an introduction to his own views than anything else. He also wrote: -/- The opinions and the supporting arguments have been developed over (...) way too many years, in a series of articles, some of which were written with the book in mind others of which were not. But now they are all gathered together in a single if somewhat sprawling argumentative thread. Maybe some will find them more convincing that way. (Taylor 2021, p. x) -/- Even for those who already admired Taylor’s work, seeing his views gathered together into a broader framework will be illuminating and worthwhile. Those for whom the book is an introduction to Taylor’s views will find here an outlook on foundational questions in the philosophy of mind and language which is at once sensible and approachable, and also ambitious and insightful. Taylor will continue to be missed and admired by the philosophical community, both as a thinker, and member of the profession. We are lucky to have some of his views gathered together as they are in this book. (shrink)

In his 1937 lectures, Heidegger searches for Nietzsche’s initial thought of “the Moment”. This paper mimics Heidegger’s pursuit of Nietzsche’s Moment by tracing Heidegger’s own early arrival at the Moment in Being and Time, published 10 years prior to his lectures on Nietzsche. Both Zarathustra and Dasein are chased in and out of an authentic relationship with the Moment by their own shadows, which disappear at midday. Dasein’s shadow is the being that is always closest-at-hand, the being in whom I (...) lose myself in everyday care. Dasein forgets itself in inauthentically securing its identity in that which it cares for and that which it is not, darkness. Yet Dasein also confronts its own finitude in its negative double as it witnesses the daily dwindling of its shadow—the everyday passing away of time. (shrink)

Narrative analysis, creative writing, and interactive reflective writing have been identified as valuable for professional identity formation and resilience among medical and premedical students alike. This study proposes that medical student blogs are novel pedagogical tools for fostering peer-to-peer learning in academic medicine and are currently underutilized as a near-peer resource for premedical students to learn about the medical profession. To evaluate the pedagogical utility of medical student blogs for introducing core themes in the medical humanities, the authors conducted qualitative (...) analysis of one hundred seventy-six reflective essays by baccalaureate premedical students written in response to medical student-authored narrative blog posts. Using an iterative thematic approach, the authors identified common patterns in the reflective essays, distilled major themes, coded the essays, and conducted narrative analysis through close reading. Qualitative analysis identified three core themes and one overarching theme. The premedical students’ essays demonstrated significant self-reflection in response to near-peer works, discussed their perceptions of medical professionalism, and expressed concerns about their future progress through the medical education system. The essays consistently attributed the impact of the medical student narratives to the authors’ status as near-peers. The authors conclude that reading and engaging in reflective writing about near-peer blog posts encourages premedical students to develop an understanding of core concepts in the medical humanities and promotes their reflection on the profession of medicine. Thus, incorporating online blogs written by medical trainees as narrative works in medical humanities classrooms is a novel pedagogical method for fostering peer-to-peer learning in academic medicine. (shrink)

Prior to the genomic sequencing era, the bible for those working in clinical genetics was McKusick’s Mendelian Inheritance in Man, which appeared in multiple editions between the 1960s and the late 1990s. This catalogue was organized according to general patterns of inheritance and focused on phenotypes. Beginning in the mid-1980s, it was replaced by Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man, a continuously updated catalogue documenting molecular relationships between genetic variation and phenotypic expression. This paper explores this resource’s evolution with attention to (...) how disease is distinguished from clinically irrelevant variation and how phenotypic similarities are captured in cases where there is no obvious genotypic association. It is argued that hybrid compromises are encoded into OMIM®; in addition to serving its key original purpose of being a diagnostic catalogue, it also began to record detectable variations in the genome even if they were not known to be associated with phenotypically visible disorders or even phenotypic variations. Although the impacts of geneticization have been well recognized, particularly in popular media, this example allows exploration of some of the historic, epistemic, and methodological causes that underlie tendencies toward disease geneticization in contemporary medicine, while highlighting that such gene-focused strategies may in fact be warranted in some contexts. (shrink)

Surgical training has traditionally involved a lengthy apprenticeship to a series of master surgeons, who teach medical students and residents the techniques of surgery while allowing them to work on patients in the operating room. This article examines surgical training as a structured environment that prepares students for the embodied lessons taught by a surgeon. It argues that even the most seemingly mechanical of surgical techniques contains social lessons when taught by a surgeon within the rich environment of the operating (...) room. (shrink)

This book sets out the conditions under which the need for a new approach to the production of architecture in the twenty-first century is established, where our homes and cities are facing increasing pressures from environmental challenges that are compromising our lives and well being. Vibrant architecture embodies a new kind of architectural design practice that explores how lively materials, or 'vibrant matter', may be incorporated into our buildings to confer on them some of the properties of living things, such (...) as movement, growth, sensitivity and self-repair. The theoretical and practical implications of how this may occur are explored through the application of a new group of materials. Characteristically, these substances possess some of the properties of living systems but may not have the full status of being truly alive. They include forms of chemical artificial life such as 'dynamic droplets' or synthetically produced soils. As complex systems, they are able to communicate directly with the natural world using a shared language of chemistry and so, negotiate their continued survival in a restless world. Vibrant architecture may create new opportunities for architectural design practice that venture beyond top-down form-finding programs, by enabling architects to co-design in partnership with human and nonhuman collectives, which result from the production of post natural landscapes. Ultimately, vibrant architecture may operate as an ecological platform for human development that augments the liveliness of our planet, rather than diminishes it. (shrink)

Rather than focusing on German philosophy or the French avant-gardes, as many books on the history of aesthetics do, Teukolsky takes up British responses to modern art controversies, thus providing a unique view on the development of artistic forms and art history. She considers the plentiful archive of Victorian "art writing"-essays addressed to the visual arts- to reveal the key role played by nineteenth-century writers in the rise of modernist Anglo-American aesthetics. Though Victorians are most often associated with realism, certain (...) art writers promoted a formalism that would come to dominate canons of twentieth-century art. Teukolsky analyzes the canonical writing of authors like John Ruskin, Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde alongside texts belonging to the rich field of Victorian print culture--gallery reviews, scientific treatises, satirical cartoons, advertisements, and early photography monographs among them. Spanning the years 1840 to 1910, her argument also adds substance to our understanding of the transition from Victorianism to modernism, a period of especially lively exchange between artists and intellectuals, here narrated with careful attention given to the historical particularities and real events that stamped their imprint on such interactions. (shrink)

Kant claims in the third Critique that one can make about wine the merely subjective judgment that it is agreeable but never the universally valid judgment that it is beautiful. This follows from his views that judgments of beauty can be made only about the formal (spatiotemporal) features of a representation and that aromas and flavors consist of formless sensory matter. However, I argue that Kant's theory permits judgments of beauty about wine because the experience displays a temporal structure: the (...) aromas and flavors evolve over the course of a tasting from the bouquet through the palate to the finish. An analogy with music, which Kant describes as 'a play of sensations in time', illuminates how wine qualifies as an object of pure judgments of taste: the 'structure' of a wine can be compared to harmonic structure, and its development throughout the taste can be compared to the unfolding of melody and harmonic progression. (shrink)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held, in Brader v. Allegheny General Hospital, 167 E3d 832, that the Health Care Quality Improvement Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 11101-11152, shields a Pennsylvania hospital from a surgeon's claims of contract violations.The plaintiff, Alan Brader, M.D., joined Allegheny General Hospital's provisional medical staff in July 1988. During the next two years, he performed several abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs and various other operations. Several of Brader's patients sustained serious injuries or died during (...) surgery from complications. In 1989, Brader's supervisors, Drs. Daniel Diamond and George Magovern, met to discuss their dissatisfaction with Brader's behavior, his departures from hospital protocol, as well as his disruptive presence in the hospital. From 1989 to 1990, Brader continued to perform surgical procedures on incoming patients, and he continued to violate hospital notification protocol and lost a patient during surgery. In spring 1990, the Quality Assurance Department compiled data on AAA procedures for the hospital's physicians. (shrink)

An expanding policy framework aimed at monitoring alcohol consumption during pregnancy has emerged. The primary justification is prevention of harm from what is termed ‘prenatal alcohol exposure’ (PAE), by enabling more extensive diagnosis of the disability labelled fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). Here we focus on proposals to include biomarkers as a PAE ‘screening tool’, specifically those found in meconium (the first newborn excrement), which are discussed as an ‘objective’ measure of PAE.We ask the overarching question, ‘Can routine screening of (...) meconium to establish PAE be ethically or legally justified’, and we answer, ‘No’. To reach this conclusion, we discuss three areas. First, we consider the reasons why meconium screening should not be deemed ‘typical’ within the scope of accepted screening tools. We argue that given the aim and necessary timing of the screen, it cannot achieve what it promises. Second, we outline why patient autonomy and consent are not properly accounted for and cannot be reconciled with the ‘routinisation’ of the proposed ‘screening’. Last, we outline why the benefit of such a screen is not clear, focusing on the significance of trust in healthcare professionals (HCP) for the best interests of the future child and pregnant woman.While recognising the adverse effects of heavy alcohol consumption during pregnancy, we emphasise the case for robust ethical, legal and social considerations and the central need for trust between HCP and patients in maternity care. We conclude the permissibility of meconium screening has not been proven, and it is not justified. (shrink)

This essay considers how an “intimacy contract,” as a conceptual tool and a political reality, extends existing critiques of the social contract tradition by accounting for the privatized nature of the post-9/11 US empire. Examining critiques by Carole Pateman and Charles Mills, I argue that an intimacy contract uncovers the coercive power relations underlying neoliberal discourses of entrepreneurial freedom. Focusing on migrant labor on US military bases, I provide an overview of the racial, sexual, and settler contracts and the need (...) to extend Mills’s and Pateman’s critiques of embodiment and spatiality. Next, I suggest how the intimacy contract generates a transnational, embodied account of the labors upholding US empire; a lens into the shifting significance of these labors under neoliberal imperialism; and a chronicling of desire and workers’ interests. In conclusion, I suggest how the intimacy contract exposes multiple resistances to US empire and neoliberal capitalism. (shrink)

There has been growing global interest in livestock animal welfare. Previous research into attitudes towards animal welfare has focused on Europe and the United States, with comparatively little focus on Australia, which is an important location due to the prominent position of agriculture economically and culturally. In this article, we present results from qualitative research on how Australian meat consumers conceptualise sheep and beef cattle welfare. The study was conducted in two capital cities (Melbourne, Victoria and Adelaide, South Australia) and (...) a much smaller rural centre (Toowoomba, Queensland) using focus groups (involving 40.9% of participants) and mall-intercept interviews (59.1% of participants), totalling 66 participants. Qualitative analysis highlights that participants had clear ideas of what it means for an animal to live a ‘good life’ and experience a ‘good death,’ with their beliefs strongly tied to their expectations and cultural understandings of what Australian agriculture ‘should be.’ In response to open-ended questions, participants expressed attitudes that relied on romanticised visions of the ‘rural idyll’ as seen in frequent discussions about what is ‘normal’ for sheep meat and beef production, and relatedly, what count as ‘natural behaviours.’ Many participants rejected anything associated with the ‘other,’ classifying it as not ‘normal’: we argue that which is not considered normal, including intensive production, foreign ownership, and halal slaughter practices, appear to place participants’ conceptualizations of an animal’s ‘good death,’ and in turn the potential for a ‘good life,’ at risk. (shrink)