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Academia in the Time of COVID-19: Towards an Ethics of Care

An extended and improved version of the post below was published in Open Access by the journal Planning Theory and Practice, and it can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2020.1757891

Covid-19 is having dramatic consequences for millions of people’s work-life balance, and academics are no exception. These are transformative times for everyone, and we do not say this glibly. We are living through a global pandemic of unprecedented scope, scale and impact. Unprecedented is the speed at which it has travelled across the globe, the number of people affected and the anticipated long-term consequences on work, life, social relations, the economy and the environment. No industry, or economic sector will go unscathed, and each of us will need to learn new ways to operate, function, and communicate.

We are not artists, singers, poets, or youtubers, and thus have little entertainment value to offer to ease the burden of the lockdown we are living. However, in writing this opinion article we hope to encourage thinking about how academics may transform our work ethos now and in the future. This disruptive time can become an opportunity to foster a culture of care, refocus on what is most important, change expectations about the meaning of quality teaching and research, and in doing so make academic practice more respectful and sustainable.

Below we develop this argument aware of our privileged life and job. We are in good health and our families are well. We are confined with our children in the flats of densely populated Barcelona. Although we do not have a garden, we have windows and balconies from which we can breathe cleaner air and admire the emptiness and quietness of our streets. We can fairly assume that our jobs are not at stake, while, in contrast, many friends and relatives have either lost their jobs (temporarily or not) or are struggling to keep afloat. Furthermore, our role as academics provides us with the chance to reflect on what the Covid-19 crisis means for us and how it could affect academia more generally.

Embrace an ethics of care

The pandemic has arrived amidst a growing call for engaged scholars to resist the neoliberalization of universities and advocating for a “feminist” academia.^1-3 We have been persuaded by the argument that academic praxis should value wellbeing and care over performance and productivity together with solidarity and pluralism over individualism and imposed norms and practices. Our passion as scientists and teachers often make us ignore the high costs of pursuing “excellence”,⁴ or at least the excellence defined by our evaluators and funders.

Our confinement has led us to think about our ethics of care. This crisis has made it clear that we must deepen our care for others, becoming more attentive to the emotions and life experiences of our students, PhD candidates, co-authors, and colleagues. Everyone is feeling great uncertainty, and they may be sick or have a relative infected by Covid-19 or loved ones who have passed away. Now more than ever, we need to be understanding with our colleagues and flexible with our professional commitments.

Therefore, some of us are already setting on-line group-based or supervision meetings while confinement lasts, to design the best strategies to ensure a healthy and effective work-life balance. These digital encounters may be used to modify our research and writing projects accordingly, but this should not be their main priority. In our view, it is not the time for a productivity-focused discourse. For those without children or relatives to care for, confinement may be an opportunity to focus with fewer distractions. However, to assume that the latter is the case for most people would be contrary to the ethics of care that we need.

We see inherent inequities in confinement. It would be wrong to assume that all researchers have a suitable and supportive home-working environment. For example, students and PhD candidates often live in small or shared houses and may need to re-define schedules and work-spaces. How can we expect quality reflection or analysis from a student or junior scholar who is confined in a single bedroom? And what can we expect from students who are currently losing their jobs and finding themselves in precarious financial conditions?

Even senior researchers are juggling. How can those with young children be expected to teach online, write creatively, supervise and continue to perform administrative tasks while homeschooling and performing all other household chores? Even if the household conditions were more “favorable”, could someone be expected to conduct business-as-usual in the wake of a global pandemic and maintain the same pace of productivity and engagement with our job duties? We think this may be difficult, if not impossible, and it may be counter-productive to maintain these expectations.

Prioritize importance over urgency

Confinement can thus help us to re-organize our priorities. It is a time to focus on what matters most to us, given the limited high-quality time that may be available. We can use confinement time to make progress on the one or two projects we care most about or to reflect about what our core contribution might be in a post-Covid world to our field and to society. In this regard, we welcome ongoing efforts to slow down the pace of academia. Some journal boards, such as Antipode’s or IJURR, have stopped processing and peer-reviewing new article submissions, and some universities have extended tenure calls or staff evaluation. Many funders have extended open research calls and principal investigators have canceled or postponed meetings until further notice.

Aligned with those kinds of decisions, we advocate for focusing on the important over the urgent, which in turn involves prioritizing collective rather than individual goals, whilst remaining accountable to our universities and scientifically responsive. This means devoting energy to the key tasks that lie at the ethos of academic work, namely, teaching, mentoring and supporting students; redesigning research objectives with our teams and project partners in ways that do not result in more stress and which may be equally or more rewarding, and contributing to institutional initiatives aimed at fostering collegiality and collective support. In this regard, we can reach out to our “forgotten” colleagues, administrative staff to ask them how they feel; we can leave brief WhatsApps or Telegram audio messages to our closest colleagues. It is also the time to have virtual coffee breaks with our professional communities to create a stronger sense of institutional and emotional belonging. It is also time to recognize that online and virtual meetings have to be properly scheduled, managed, and numbered to not create new burdens on others. From an intellectual standpoint, when and if mental and physical space allows, we can contribute to public debates about Covid-19 from our own disciplinary perspective. Such contributions may not necessarily take the form of academic articles but be made through our teaching or public outreach (e.g. blogs, TV and radio appearances, student-led debates, etc.).

We have not chosen confinement, but we can choose how to adapt and respond. Inevitably, there will be items on our to-do list that will not get done. We should not feel guilty about this. Some projects may involve a time investment that we currently do not have, or they may potentially have unbearable consequences for others. For example, it may not make sense to hold online meetings to start up new research or departmental initiatives, involving other people and institutions as if things were operating normally. This may be unnecessarily stressful, since we cannot know a priori if some of the invitees may face difficult circumstances as a result of Covid-19 but may not feel empowered to disclose such circumstances.

These reflections about what should be considered important, and what should be advanced further or put on hold during confinement, also involve becoming aware of power relations in academia. Academics who hold more power than others, and regardless of whether such power emanates from their institutional or relational positions, should make a careful “use” of it. For example, senior academics should ensure that any suggestion of improvement made to students, members of their research groups, or fellow colleagues is taken as constructively as possible, whilst being open to suggestions on how to better support tasks and collegiality. It is unlikely that uneven power relations in academia will change substantially during the pandemic, but it is essential that we remain aware of how this power is wielded and that its misuse may be more damaging and more reprehensible than ever before, given the increased fragility and uncertainty that surrounds us.

The leadership and institutional context in which we work can make a huge difference in facilitating the work culture that we will need during confinement and in a post-Covid-19 world. We work at different universities and are supported by different funders, allowing us to contrast how these different institutions are confronting the crisis. Career and evaluation expectations must change. Covid-19 can and should lead us to prioritize those areas and tasks where we can really make a difference, which may involve writing less but better, and engaging more seriously with knowledge transfer and policy change activities.

Weight the role and values of online teaching

Many academics have been asked to adjust to online teaching in a matter of days. Based on what we have seen here in Spain, this is being done rather satisfactorily, with students being grateful, responsive and participatory. We are aware that online education is a mainstream practice in open universities which can result in very positive, knowledge-sharing experiences. However, we hope that the “discovery” of online teaching by mainstream universities as a result of the pandemic does not become an excuse to eliminate long-term teaching positions and to replace classroom teachers with virtual teaching tools for hundreds of students.

Furthermore, in this rush towards online teaching, we should not forget that, as highlighted earlier, students also have families and friends who may be falling sick or struggling with their jobs and lives. It is thus important to make sure that participants in online classes have the chance to express their thoughts about the crisis and urge those who are struggling to contact their lecturers in private in order to find more flexible ways to learn and engage with the syllabus. It may also be useful to make our teaching content relevant to the current crisis, and to ask students reflect on existing connections between Covid-19 and the studied issue at hand, as some researchers have already done in blogs and other media outlets.^5,6We also need to ensure we reach out to students who do not have stable internet connections at home for logistical or financial reasons. One of the most acute risks of online teaching would be to deepen inequities in educational opportunities and social inequalities more broadly.

Adjust research goals

Our research practice will also need adjustment. By not being able to conduct fieldwork or access labs, we may need to re-schedule activities under a great degree of uncertainty. In our case, we supervise research projects where most data collection takes place in countries where the impact of the virus on the population and the social and political responses to Covid-19 are still unknown. We cannot thus yet envision when we will be able to start or continue with data collection, which in turn might have, say, an impact on the development of PhD dissertations and the research collaborations in place. In some projects, such uncertainty could be turned into an opportunity to re-think the research goals and turn to secondary data collection and analysis strategies or to identifying unexploited primary datasets that can be shared between colleagues to help Masters or PhD students. Though this is far from being a best scenario, it is one that might be worth exploring and which may also result in novel knowledge.

We know of course that re-adjusting research questions and methodological focus is probably not the most challenging issue we face. From a human perspective, the key is and will be to encourage a collective movement that persuades funders about the need to be flexible with project completion windows and budgetary justifications. For example, if data collection has been or will be delayed as a result of Covid-19, we cannot ask our research teams to deliver outputs faster in the future; we should avoid inflicting psychological harm and stress to ourselves and our research teams when catching up with pending work after confinement ends.⁷

Rethink academia after Covid-19

To conclude, this ongoing global pandemic has reminded us of the often-forgotten co-evolution of humans and (the rest of) nature, and the harm that the latter can also inflict on us, beyond the more common geographically or temporarily circumscribed health crises and the recurrent extreme climatic events that also kill thousands of lives every year. Everyone will be affected by Covid-19 in a rather short period of time, directly or indirectly, and it may change all of us.

Our confinement has led us to reflect on the directions that academic practice could take during this unusual time, so as to avoid embracing the trap of neoliberal scholarship, and how it would be desirable to act after the pandemic. We may like to shift expectations about our work, the way we communicate with each other, and re-think what it means to be an engaged scholar, including the social-psychological, political, and environmental implications of academic activities and our value systems. When the Covid-19 crisis fades away, which it will, we have a chance to make academia a more ethical, empathetic, and thus rewarding profession.

Post co-written with Isabelle Anguelovski, Jordi Honey-Rosés and Isabel Ruiz-Mallén.

Disclaimer

The views expressed above are the authors’ own, who are grateful to Ana Cañizares for insightful edits. Figure source: Corbera et al., 2020, Academia in the Time of COVID-19: Towards an Ethics of Care, Planning Theory and Practice, https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2020.1757891.

References

1. Berg, M., Seeber, B., 2016. The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy, University of Toronto Press.

2. Cardel et al., 2020. Turning Chutes into Ladders for Women Faculty: A Review and Roadmap for Equity in Academia, Journal of Women’s Health, ahead of print, https://doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2019.8027

3. Caretta, M.A, Faria, C.V., 2020. Time and Care in the “Lab” and the “Field”: Slow Mentoring and Feminist Research in Geography, Geographical Review, 110:1-2, 172-182, https://doi.org/10.1111/gere.12369

4. Lashuel, H.A., 2020. The busy lives of academics have hidden costs — and universities must take better care of their faculty members, Nature, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00661-w

5. Adams, B., 2020. COVID-19 and Conservation, https://thinkinglikeahuman.com/2020/03/16/covid-19-and-conservation/

6. Wong, E., 2020. TB, HIV and COVID-19: urgent questions as three epidemics collide, https://theconversation.com/tb-hiv-and-covid-19-urgent-questions-as-three-epidemics-collide-134554

7. Corbera, E., 2020, COVID-19: Confined thoughts, http://estevecorbera.com/covid-19-confined-thoughts/

Covid-19: Confined thoughts

A new day of confinement at home, one of many to come. We have organized the confinement into blocks of time. We get up at 7.30, have breakfast together and we work for a couple of hours: Pol does homework, Jana draws or plays, and I prepare my online classes, respond to emails and advance some writing. Subsequently, we do a ‘collective research project’. We have chosen together a set of topics that are mostly related to what both are working at school. Subsequently, we play board games or lego, or do some crafts. We have lunch, watch TV for a couple of hours, read for a while and then do some yoga-fitness in the living room. We shower, cook dishes we like, and have dinner. Afterwards, we watch a movie, read in bed again and switch off the lights. It is a cycle that we will repeat in the days to come.

It is gratifying to see how other friends and families share their confinement experiences on social media. During the crisis, a significant number of parents may spend more quality time with their sons and daughters. Children may get to know us better, because we may talk more often to each other, without haste and impatience. Some may discover that playing with their children is wonderful and that it should be okay if they work less and spend more time at home when all goes back to normal in the future. We may call our elderly more often, and we may phone friends with whom we have not been in touch with in ages. Those deeply in love but separated temporarily may realize if their love resists being apart; broken marriages may perhaps heal and grow stronger, and others which felt strong may realize they were not so and that, in fact, they don’t have anything to say to each other. The marriages which worked smoothly may become indestructible, at least in the short term! We may sympathize more than ever with those who fall sick, and we may even have to say goodbye to our beloved ones and never see them again. The latter sounds terrific and tragic, but it may be inevitable that someone more or less close to us dies these days, and we will have to deal with such emotional trauma. More pregnancies may emerge from the crisis, some desired others not, which makes me feel confident about the fact that deaths will turn into births in nine months’ time. The unstoppable cycle of life.

Whilst individuals, families and society re-discover themselves between four walls, the economy is collapsing. The Covid-19 crisis has made evident -if it was not already so- that all economic activity is intimately connected and globalized. It just takes a few nodes in the global economic network to collapse at the same time, for everything else across the network to fall apart. Positively, one could say that when nodes are re-constituted in the future, the network will emerge again. The economic crisis will allow us to distinguish between the essential and the futile. Happiness is to feel useful for each other, to feel loved, to have health and food, and little else. Ok, and maybe also some sport, which in my case is cycling and Reburn. This is why we take care of each other these days, and why we applaud health professionals, including pharmacists and researchers, from our balconies at 8 pm or from our inner soul in silence. Such gratefulness should also be extended to the food industry professionals, from farmers, to distributors, and food shop owners. Those of us who work “on less essential” stuff should be humbler in the future to avoid thinking that our job is “very important”.

I also hope that, after the crisis, some companies begin to seriously consider the possibility of home-working, at least a few days a week and for those employees who need it and/or want it. Doing so would contribute to social well-being and the environment. The global Covid-19 crisis has reduced global greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main driver of climate change, and improved air quality in cities. The global environment and respiratory health can be two beneficiaries of a slower economy. We need to work less but better, that is, we need to be more efficient in the use of our time and other resources, and to move and/or travel less. We should explore new ways to work and manage our lives when the health crisis fades away.

Investors and companies may lose tons of money, and so may the middle class, which will see their savings shrinking. Let’s rebel if the financial crash involves job losses. Shareholders should earn nothing by the end of 2020 and should instead act in solidarity and maintain the dignity of their companies’ employees. We should avoid putting our wellbeing in peril -or the environment- when we resume work after the crisis, in order to make up for the economic losses or the “wasted time” of these strange weeks behind and ahead. In my case, it would be erroneous to stress out in an attempt to recover lost classes, re-schedule meetings and perform pending research activities as fast as possible. Let us therefore collectively ensure that no one is asked to fulfill the career goals set earlier this year as if nothing had happened; this year is not a year like any other. We should recover the economic system slowly, and do so in a socially responsible and empathetic way.

Politically speaking, this global health crisis may also make us reflect on the co-operation and effectiveness of the democratic and non-democratic institutions that influence our lives. With the outbreak of the epidemic in China, the World Health Organisation (a UN body) has not been able to alter the policies of Nation-States, and its discourse has seemed to me rather ineffective. The Security Council has gone silent; can you imagine what may happen if the epidemic extends to the poorest countries, where confinement may not be possible and the public health systems are so weak? Nation-States are acting individually, as if we were still in the early XXth century, and they have been slow to take action, and not very determined to quickly implement the advice of most epidemiology experts. The fact that they have wanted to turn the economy off too slowly will be the cause of the many Covid-19 deaths to come. In Spain, the central government has opted for political re-centralization, casting doubts on its confidence in autonomous governments and the effectiveness of inter-governmental cooperation. Catalonia, the nation without a State, has called for more decisive measures to deal with the epidemic, but it has neither the resources nor the power to implement them. Around us, the European Union and its executive arm, the Commission, have once again shown a flagrant inability to coordinate the measures of their Member States because it remains rather insensitive to the wellbeing of people (think about migrants, for example). Central banks, rather transparent institutions but incredibly powerful, have coordinated to minimize the economic effects of the crisis, dropping interest rates to zero. Let’s hope that this cooperation deepens in the days to come and that the poorest countries, peoples and smallest companies do not pay the costs of the crisis.

I had never felt so vulnerable before. I have always been very aware that life is fragile; we can be diagnosed with an incurable disease or suffer a fatal misfortune anytime. My father died of cancer, and my best friend from motorcycle accident. I have traveled a lot for work, to remote places, and I have always been aware that I may not return. But what I feel these days is different, because I had never been confined before, nor I had been so attentive to the evolution of a disease that gets transmitted so quickly and has a very significant lethality rate. This is not a war against the virus, as we are constantly told on the media, but an opportunity to follow the advice given by renowned epidemiologists, and to protect ourselves and everyone so that the dead and sick are as few as possible in Catalonia, Spain, and around the world. It is thus not a war, but an exercise of responsibility, love, and global kindness that we must endorse with determination.

The link below is a Spotify list to enjoy at home in the coming days and weeks. I have made it collaborative so that you too can add songs as you please, and we make it a symbol of unity between us. Music, through its pleasing sounds and emotional lyrics, always brings people together, isn’t it?

Until we can hug, kiss and talk less than a meter away from each other take care of yourselves, please. Happy confinement, and good luck.

Covid-19: Pensaments confinats

És un nou dia de confinament a casa, un de molts que estan per venir. Hem organitzat el confinament en blocs de temps. Ens llevem a l’hora de sempre, esmorzem plegats i ens posem a ‘estudiar’ un parell d’hores: el Pol fa deures, la Jana dibuixa o juga, i jo treballo una mica. Després fem un projecte ‘de recerca’. Hem escollit un conjunt de temes que anirem desenvolupant els propers dies. Després d’investigar, juguem abans de dinar: jocs de taula, lego, manualitats. Ells veuen la televisió una estona mentre jo treballo o faig classes i reunions online, i tot seguit llegim una estona i fem ioga-‘fitness’ casolà. Ens dutxem i després cuinem plats que ens agraden. Havent sopat, veiem una pel·lícula plegats, tornem a llegir una estona i a dormir. És un cicle que repetirem en els dies que estan per venir.

Està essent gratificant llegir i veure com altres amics i altres famílies comparteixen les seves experiències de confinament per les xarxes socials. M’han fet pensar que una cosa molt bona d’aquesta crisi serà que un nombre important de mares i pares dedicarem més temps de qualitat als nostres fills i filles. I ells ens coneixeran millor perquè parlarem més, de vegades sobre coses inversemblants, i sense cap pressa i sense impaciència. Potser alguns pares descobriran que jugar amb els seus fills i filles és una meravella i que estaria bé deixar de treballar tant quan sortim d’aquestes setmanes estranyes. Tots plegats trucarem més als nostres “grans”, els hi farem més companyia “virtual” o telefònica, i tindrem una bella paraula per les amigues i amics que ara no podem veure. Els enamorats que estiguin separats s’adonaran si en la distància es saben estimar; parelles trencades potser es guariran i esdevindran més fortes, i d’altres que potser es pensaven molt fortes es descobriran dèbils i sense res a dir-se. Les que funcionaven es faran indestructibles, almenys a curt termini. Ens solidaritzarem més que mai amb aquells que més o menys properament pateixin el virus, i qui sap si ens haurem de dir adéu per telèfon, i no veure’ls mai més. Fa feredat, i sona tràgic, però és probable que algú del nostre entorn mori i ho haurem de gestionar emocionalment. De la crisi sortiran més embarassos, alguns que seran buscats i d’altres menys desitjats, així que estic segur que les morts es convertiran en naixements d’aquí a uns mesos. L’imparable cicle de la vida.

Mentre els individus, les famílies i la societat ens re-descobrim confinats entre quatre parets, l’economia s’enfonsa. La crisi del Covid-19 ens ha mostrat sense miraments que l’activitat econòmica està íntimament connectada i globalitzada. Només cal que alguns nodes de la xarxa econòmica global s’ensorrin a l’hora, perquè tot s’esfondri. En positiu, també es podria escriure que quan els nodes tornin a reconstituir-se, la xarxa es formarà de nou. La crisi econòmica també ens ha fet o ens farà distingir entre el que és imprescindible i el que és fútil. En realitat, per ser feliços, necessitem sentir-nos útils per l’altre, sentir-nos estimades, tenir salut i menjar, i poca cosa més. Bé, i una mica d’esport, que en el meu cas és el ciclisme i Reburn. Per això cuidem, deixem que ens cuidin, i aplaudim a totes les professionals de la salut, farmacèutiques i investigadores incloses, des de la intimitat o des dels balcons; un agraïment que des d’avui hauríem d’estendre als professionals del sector alimentari, des dels pagesos, fins als distribuïdors, propietaris d’establiments alimentaris, i els botiguers i botigueres. Els que treballem en coses menys imprescindibles recordem-ho al sortir de la crisi, no per deixar de treballar, sinó per no sentir-nos massa importants. Siguem més humils en el futur.

Espero que, amb aquesta crisi, algunes empreses comencin a considerar de forma més decidida el treball remot dels seus empleats, almenys alguns dies per setmana i per aquells i aquelles que ho necessitin i/o desitgin. Si ho fan, contribuiran al benestar social i al medi ambient. La crisi global del Covid-19 ha contribuït a reduir les emissions globals de gasos amb efecte d’hivernacle, principal causa del canvi climàtic, i a millorar la qualitat de l’aire. Si l’economia va més lenta, si ens movem menys, el medi ambient global i la salut respiratòria ho agraeixen. Ens cal treballar menys però millor, és a dir, ser més eficients en l’ús del temps i d’altres recursos, i moure’s i/o viatjar l’imprescindible. Busquem noves maneres de treballar i gestionar la nostra vida quan la crisi sanitària del Covid-19 passi.

Els inversors perdran diners durant aquesta crisi, i els petits estalviadors també. No deixem que això suposi una pèrdua de llocs de treball; rebel·lem-nos. Que els accionistes no guanyin res a finals de 2020 i que es mantingui la dignitat dels que cada dia fan que una empresa sigui una empresa, és a dir les seves treballadores i treballadors. Com a persones i com a societat, no hem de permetre que quan la crisi passi se’ns exigeixi treballar més hores i estressar-nos per eixugar les pèrdues, recuperar ingressos, o en el meu cas, recuperar totes les hores de classe, reunions de projectes, i activitats de recerca el més ràpid possible. Són objectius lloables que podrien malmetre el nostre benestar psicològic i físic a mig termini, a l’hora que agreujarien els impactes ambientals que he comentat abans. Vetllem doncs col·lectivament perquè no es demani a ningú complir amb els objectius professionals que s’havien plantejat a principis d’aquest any com si no hagués passat res; aquest any no és un any com qualsevol altre. Recuperem el sistema econòmic d’una manera socialment responsable i empàtica.

Políticament parlant, aquesta crisi sanitària global també ens pot fer reflexionar sobre la cooperació i l’efectivitat de les institucions democràtiques i no democràtiques que influeixen les nostres vides. Amb l’inici de l’epidèmia a la Xina, l’Organització Mundial de la Salut, organisme de les Nacions Unides, no ha pogut alterar gaire les polítiques dels Estats-Nació i ha estat poc contundent amb el seu discurs. El Consell de Seguretat no respira; us imagineu què pot passar si l’epidèmia s’estén per països pobres on el confinament d’individus i famílies és probablement inviable i on els sistemes sanitaris són precaris? Els Estats-Nació van a la seva, com si estiguéssim encara a principis del segle XX, i han estat lents adoptant mesures, i massa poc decidits a l’hora d’implementar els consells de la majoria d’experts en epidemiologia. El fet que hagin volgut desactivar l’economia massa poc a poc els farà culpables de moltes de les morts per Covid-19. A Espanya, l’Estat ha optat per la re-centralització política, sembrant dubtes sobre la confiança del govern central en els governs autonòmics i l’efectivitat de la cooperació autonòmica. Catalunya, la nació sense Estat, reclama mesures més decidides a l’Estat per fer front a l’epidèmia però no té recursos ni poder per implementar-les. Al nostre voltant, la Unió Europea i el seu braç executiu, la Comissió, han demostrat una vegada més una incapacitat flagrant per coordinar les mesures dels seus Estats membres perquè quan es tracta del benestar de persones (e.g., malalts, migrants) és una regió ineficaç i insensible, burocràtica. Els bancs centrals, unes institucions bastant poc transparents però increïblement poderoses, s’intenten coordinar per intentar minimitzar els efectes econòmics de la crisi baixant els tipus d’interès a zero. Confiem que aprofundeixin la cooperació en els dies que venen, i sobretot quan l’epidèmia passi, per tal que els països i famílies més pobres, així com les empreses més petites, no paguin els costos de la crisi.

No havia sentit mai fins ara tanta vulnerabilitat. Sempre he estat molt conscient que la vida és fràgil; qualsevol dia podem ser diagnosticats una malaltia incurable, o podem patir un infortuni mortal. He perdut un pare per càncer, i el meu millor amic en accident de moto. He viatjat molt per feina, a llocs remots, i he pedalat per carreteres amb molt trànsit; sempre he estat conscient que podia no tornar. Però el que sento aquests dies és diferent, perquè no havia estat mai confinat, ni havia estat mai tant amatent a l’evolució d’una malaltia que té una letalitat força important. Per mi, no es tracta d’una guerra contra el virus, com ens diuen constantment, sinó de seguir els consells que ens donen els epidemiòlegs i les nostres institucions democràtiques, i protegir-nos entre totes i tots perquè els morts i malalts siguin el menor nombre possible a Catalunya, Espanya, i arreu del món. No és una guerra, doncs, és un exercici de responsabilitat, amor, tendresa i bonhomia global que hem d’assumir amb serenor i determinació.

A l’enllaç de sota trobareu una llista d’ Spotify per gaudir a casa durant els propers dies i setmanes. És col·laborativa per tal que vosaltres també hi afegiu les vostres cançons i la convertim en un símbol d’unitat. La música, amb els seus sons plaents i líriques emotives, sempre uneix la gent, no creieu?

Fins que ens puguem tornar a abraçar, besar i parlar a menys d’un metre de distància, cuideu-vos. Feliç confinament, i molta sort.

Beyond market logics in PES

As originally conceived, Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes provide conditional cash transfers directed to poor farmers and land users in exchange for greener land use practices that enhance carbon sequestration, water provision, or biodiversity protection. Two decades of experience with the PES approach has demonstrated that few, if any, initiatives conform to the assumptions that underlie the original economic model.

This collection of articles, guest edited by Elizabeth Shapiro-Garza, Pamela McElwee, Gert van Hecken and myself, examines why these initiatives, constructed on market‐based principles and promoted as part of the neoliberal political project, often do not look nearly as ‘market‐like’ or neoliberal on the ground. Through subtle, situated, empirically rich and theoretically informed analyses, the 10 articles that comprise this special issue analyse the variegated ways and degrees to which original market-based models have been adopted, contested, adapted, hybridized and transformed to fit other ontologies and purposes.

The articles are based on research conducted in a diversity of geographies and contexts, and a variety of types and scales of PES approaches. These range from NGO‐initiated, small‐scale carbon offsetting on the steppes of Mongolia and watershed management projects in Colombia and Ecuador, to regional projects for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) in Indonesia and Brazil, to nationally scaled PES policies of the centralized states of Mexico, Guatemala, China and Vietnam.

Taking a political ecology approach, all articles frame their analyses of specific PES initiatives in the global South as an often‐idiosyncratic form of development practice that is influenced by and mediates between global structural trajectories (e.g. capitalism, developmentalism or environmentalism) and the locally situated, historically defined and grounded practices of the actors involved. In this sharpening of our understanding of what PES is in practice and what it can become, we begin to see that certain required components of the neoclassical economic model, promoted by the neoliberal political project — such as the need for valuation of nature, the creation of institutions, and the negotiations that inevitably surround the distribution of benefits — also afford and can allow for local interpretations and flexibility.

The special issue contributes to a growing body of research that sheds light on the ways and degrees to which subjects of neoliberal interventions are able to find ‘surfaces of engagement’ through which they can, to a greater or lesser extent, alter, adapt and, in some cases, create spaces for wholesale transformations of exogenously imposed models in conformity to their own aims and goals. Feel free to ask me for the papers if you cannot get hold of them online.

Climate policies, natural resources and conflict: Implications for development

The journal Climate Policy has published a new special issue focused on climate change policies, natural resources management and conflict, and the linkages of these policies and processes with development in the global South. Guest edited by Dik Roth (Wageningen University), Courtney Work (National Chengchi University) and myself, the special issue encompasses eight articles which engage critically with REDD+, renewable energy, and adaptation and resilience interventions, among others.

The collection reveals that certain hegemonic discourses, practices and structures of power related to development, resource access, and resource use can emerge, persist or even intensify through climate change policies and interventions. The contributions show the ways in which the often-well-intended climate change-informed discourses, policies and practices intersect with ongoing struggles over resources, energy access, land, water and ‘space’, particularly when these are unlikely to have a climatic cause, and to explore how such intersections ignite, fuel or transform (existing) conflicts or social cooperation. The papers also provide robust evidence about the fact that climate change policies alone, even when mainstreamed into other sectoral policy domains, may not be able to turn upside down entrenched power relations, transform governance systems characterized by great inertia, or redress social injustices.

The special issue is open access and can be accessed here: https://tandfonline.com/toc/tcpo20/19/sup1

Picture: A sawmill from CDM-reforestation trees in Cambodia. Copyright Courtney Work.