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Do regional institutions promote more equitable governance in the global South and, in particular, do they enable more gender-equitable governance? We examine these questions in the light of regional governance actions and policies under COVID-19, drawing on evidence from Latin America and Africa. We argue that weak regional gender equality norms contributed to the downgrading of the rights of women and girls in policymaking during COVID-19, within both member states and regional organizations, which resulted in women and girls paying an unnecessarily high price during and after the pandemic. Using interview and documentary data, we show that the existence of gender equality norms led to an initial recognition of the need for gendered protections in COVID-19 policies but that these were side-lined, and the rights and needs of women and girls deprioritized, as the pandemic deepened. We also discuss the gendered costs of deprioritization in terms of preventable everyday harms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we account for the ability or otherwise of regional organisations in the global South to enable equitable and inclusive responses to the COVID-19 pandemic? We answer this question with a focus on Africa and in relation to the rights of women and girls. Drawing on theoretical insights from Feminist Global Health Security and from data on the African Union, other regional organisations in Africa and from non-governmental organisations, local activists and medical centres, we show that regional organisations acted quickly to identify the gendered socio-economic and health needs of women and girls and alerted member states to their responsibility to consider gender rights in their policy responses. But weak gender norms led to a disconnect between this early recognition of the importance of policies to protect women and girls and the behaviour of regional organisations, which could not lead a gender sensitive response or engineer one in member state governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that ideas about tax matter as much as interests and institutions for understanding social attitudes and responses to attempts by the state to raise revenues for development agendas. Tax is a profoundly political problem, reflecting different and sometimes opposing ideas about the role of the state, the market and business-state relationships, and tax rises in developing countries can become linked to wider conflicts of development. Using the case of Argentina, the paper examines, empirically, the attempts by the government of Cristina Kirchner to finance state expenditure and social welfare via raising taxes on commodity exports after 2008. It argues that ideas of tax became embedded with deeply contested ideas of what the state's role in development should be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste management has been a focal point in ethnographic research, yet its aesthetic and ideological facets in shaping 'urban nature' have been largely overlooked. The article delves into a comparative study of two parks in Kochi, a South Indian city, examining the intersection of environmental aesthetics, infrastructural visibility, and the conceptualization of urban nature. Through this juxtaposition, the study elucidates how divergent waste management strategies reflect broader ideologies concerning urban environments and their role in urban development initiatives. The article posits that waste and its management are not peripheral elements in the urban experience of nature; rather, they are integral components that shape it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of plastic waste accumulating in the environment has become ubiquitous in recent years. One way in which urban governments are looking to solve this issue is by investing one of several thermodynamic technologies that fall under the umbrella term 'waste-to-energy'. The drawback of such technologies is that the waste stream must be consistent in quality and quantity. By drawing on ethnographic research with environmental activists in Kochi, South India, I demonstrate that particular environmental and material conditions—in this case Kochi's immense wetness—confound the supposed universality of such infrastructures. Querying waste infrastructures in this way also leads to insights that suggest that investing in infrastructures to address issues of plastic waste often deepen attachments to plastic economies of capitalist accumulation. I ultimately argue that addressing environmental and social concerns about plastic waste means broadening what is relevant to infrastructural interventions in urban environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of crisis, governments can resort to tax rises and emergency taxation schemes to finance extraordinary needs. These schemes often generate tensions in the fiscal contract between the state and society, as they affect basic definitions regarding who is taxed, for how much, and what for. In the context of developing economies, where available sources of extraordinary rents are limited, dealing with these tensions can be problematic as it involves reconciling questions of fiscal legitimacy with the interests of influential economic sectors. This article analyses these tensions by exploring the case of Argentina in the aftermath of the 2001 debt default crisis, when emergency taxes on agricultural exports were implemented and then expanded under Kirchnerist administrations pursuing a 'post-neoliberal' developmental agenda. However, we argue that the government failed in legitimating this fiscal agreement, resulting in a tax rebellion by the rural sector in 2008 followed by the growing polarisation of the policy in partisan terms. By bringing to the fore the challenges and conflicts involved in legitimating tax collection, the article illuminates an overlooked aspect of the political economy of developmental states, particularly those seeking to enhance state autonomy while pursuing redistributive goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The (post)colonial logics of speed and convenience are manifest in many of today's infrastructural projects, creating what we consider to be 'fast infrastructures'. These infrastructures create ease for some and harm for others while exacerbating social and environmental crises around the world. Addressing these crises requires, we argue, a slowing down. Enter the role of 'slow infrastructures'. In this paper, we highlight two forms of slow infrastructure that provide possibilities for rearranging our infrastructural orientations: composting and rainwater harvesting. Drawing on fieldwork conducted throughout 2018 and 2019 in Kochi, Kerala, this research asserts that in order to do infrastructure differently, an unworking of convenience and speed is required. This unworking can be achieved through an attunement to multi-species and more-than-human relations, matched with a distributed ethic of maintenance and care. Our ethnographic examples, one from a hospital and another from a hotel, suggest that slow infrastructures can meaningfully offset the threat of disfunction and 'urban failure' that confronts cities increasingly marked by turbulence and uncertainty. While these examples draw from the tropics of urban South India, they offer lessons helpful to unworking the harm caused by fast infrastructures in other parts of the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although high-risk sport participants are typically considered a homogenous risk-taking population, attitudes to risk within the high-risk domain can vary considerably. As no validated measure allows researchers to assess risk taking within this domain, we validated the Risk Taking Inventory (RTI) for high-risk sport across four studies. The RTI comprises seven items across two factors: deliberate risk taking and precautionary behaviors. In Study 1 (n = 341), the inventory was refined and tested via a confirmatory factor analysis used in an exploratory fashion. The subsequent three studies confirmed the RTI's good model-data fit via three further separate confirmatory factor analyses. In Study 2 (n = 518) and in Study 3 (n = 290), concurrent validity was also confirmed via associations with other related traits (sensation seeking, behavioral activation, behavioral inhibition, impulsivity, self-esteem, extraversion, and conscientiousness). In Study 4 (n = 365), predictive validity was confirmed via associations with mean accidents and mean close calls in the high-risk domain. Finally, in Study 4, the self-report version of the inventory was significantly associated with an informant version of the inventory. The measure will allow researchers and practitioners to investigate risk taking as a variable that is conceptually distinct from participation in a high-risk sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although high-risk sport participants are typically considered a homogenous risk-taking population, attitudes to risk within the high-risk domain can vary considerably. As no validated measure allows researchers to assess risk taking within this domain, we validated the Risk Taking Inventory (RTI) for high-risk sport across four studies. The RTI comprises seven items across two factors: deliberate risk taking and precautionary behaviors. In Study 1 (n = 341), the inventory was refined and tested via a confirmatory factor analysis used in an exploratory fashion. The subsequent three studies confirmed the RTI's good model-data fit via three further separate confirmatory factor analyses. In Study 2 (n = 518) and in Study 3 (n = 290), concurrent validity was also confirmed via associations with other related traits (sensation seeking, behavioral activation, behavioral inhibition, impulsivity, self-esteem, extraversion, and conscientiousness). In Study 4 (n = 365), predictive validity was confirmed via associations with mean accidents and mean close calls in the high-risk domain. Finally, in Study 4, the self-report version of the inventory was significantly associated with an informant version of the inventory. The measure will allow researchers and practitioners to investigate risk taking as a variable that is conceptually distinct from participation in a high-risk sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) collect and generate vast amounts of potentially rich data, most of which are not used for research purposes. Secondary analysis of NGO data (their use and analysis in a study for which they were not originally collected) presents an important but largely unrealised opportunity to provide new research insights in critical areas, including the evaluation of health policy and programmes.Methods: A scoping review of the published literature was performed to identify the extent to which secondary analysis of NGO data has been used in health policy and systems research (HPSR). A tiered analytical approach provided a comprehensive overview and descriptive analyses of the studies that (1) used data produced or collected by or about NGOs; (2) performed secondary analysis of the NGO data (beyond the use of an NGO report as a supporting reference); and (3) analysed NGO-collected clinical data.Results: Of the 156 studies that performed secondary analysis of NGO-produced or collected data, 64% (n = 100) used NGO-produced reports (mostly to a limited extent, as a contextual reference or to critique NGO activities) and 8% (n = 13) analysed NGO-collected clinical data. Of these studies, 55% (n = 86) investigated service delivery research topics and 48% (n = 51) were undertaken in developing countries and 17% (n = 27) in both developing and developed countries. NGOs were authors or co-authors of 26% of the studies. NGO-collected clinical data enabled HPSR within marginalised groups (e.g. migrants, people in conflict-affected areas), albeit with some limitations such as inconsistent and missing data.Conclusion: We found evidence that NGO-collected and produced data are most commonly perceived as a source of supporting evidence for HPSR and not as primary source data. However, these data can facilitate research in under-researched marginalised groups and in contexts that are hard to reach by academics such as conflict-affected areas. NGO-academic collaboration could help address issues of NGO data quality to facilitate their more widespread use in research. The use of NGO data use could enable relevant and timely research in the areas of programme evaluation and health policy and advocacy to improve health and reduce health inequalities, especially in marginalised groups and developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Whilst the link between physical factors and risk of high altitude (HA)-related illness and acute mountain sickness (AMS) have been extensively explored, the influence of psychological factors has been less well examined. In this study we aimed to investigate the relationship between ‘anxiety and AMS risk during a progressive ascent to very HA. Methods: Eighty health adults were assessed at baseline (848m) and over 9 consecutive altitudes during a progressive trek to 5140m. HA-related symptoms (Lake Louise [LLS] and AMS-C Scores) and state anxiety (State-Trait-Anxiety-Score [STAI Y-1]) were examined at each altitude with trait anxiety (STAI Y-2) at baseline. Results: The average age was 32.1 ± 8.3 years (67.5% men). STAI Y-1 scores fell from 848m to 3619m, before increasing to above baseline scores (848m) at ≥4072m (p = 0.01). STAI Y-1 scores correlated with LLS (r = 0.31; 0.24–0.3; P<0.0001) and AMS-C Scores (r = 0.29; 0.22–0.35; P<0.0001). There was significant main effect for sex (higher STAI Y-1 scores in women) and altitude with no sex-x-altitude interaction on STAI Y-1 Scores. Independent predictors of significant state anxiety included female sex, lower age, higher heart rate and increasing LLS and AMS-C scores (p<0.0001). A total of 38/80 subjects (47.5%) developed AMS which was mild in 20 (25%) and severe in 18 (22.5%). Baseline STAI Y-2 scores were an independent predictor of future severe AMS (B = 1.13; 1.009–1.28; p = 0.04; r2 = 0.23) and STAI Y-1 scores at HA independently predicted AMS and its severity. Conclusion: Trait anxiety at low altitude was an independent predictor of future severe AMS development at HA. State anxiety at HA was independently associated with AMS and its severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]