Introduction

The Critical Geography Collective of Ecuador (or el Colectivo) is exemplary of contemporary feminist collective geography praxis happening in Latin America. The geographical reach of our activism is mainly within Latin America, with a lot of our work focusing on the Amazon region. We accompany social movements and collectives in the defense of their territories against extractive industry, militarization, migrant criminalization, and patriarchal formations of space. Currently our work focuses on denouncing the negative consequences of extractive industry, gender-based violence and most recently the relationship between structural racism, the reinforcement of racist border regimes and COVID-19 from critical cartography and geography perspectives. We focus on implementing critical geography methods and developing geospatial analysis based on the needs of the communities with whom we work. Since 2012, the Critical Geography Collective of Ecuador has organized around geographical critiques of extractivist industry, patriarchy, and the connection between the two. As of 2020, we have also delved into the geographies of human mobility, which will also be addressed in this chapter.

Many of the collective's members are research activists, and are members of both academic institutions and activist groups. We are about 25 members in total. About half our members hold a PhD or are studying in a PhD program. Many have participated in social movements since youth, in particular feminist and ecology movements. And almost all belong to another activist collective aside from el Colectivo. Our members are also spread out across the world in Spain, Brazil, Germany, Norway, Colombia, Mexico, and the Netherlands and members residing in Ecuador are from the USA, Italy, and non-urban centres within Ecuador. At some point each member has lived in Ecuador but now find themselves in other parts of the globe. And while we are called the Critical Geography Collective of Ecuador, our reach is transnational given how our own bodies have moved through multiple scales and with that bring different geographical epistemologies, ontologies, methodologies, methods, and activist praxis into conversation. As will be further explored in this chapter, we understand the embodiment of human mobility by most of the collective's members to be part of the translocation of feminist geographical praxis and feminist geography activist practices (Zaragocin, 2021; Falanga, 2022).

Introduction

The role of decolonised science, technology, and innovation

In an era where there is a crucial need to identify long-term solutions to sustainable development and global change challenges across the world, there is a strategic lead that science, technology, and innovation (STI)-focused organisations in Africa (including governments, universities, and research and development [R&D] departments of industries) can take to develop homegrown policies and initiatives to allow Africans themselves to provide solutions to their own particular needs and challenges.

The African continent is bedevilled by multiple challenges that cut across different economic sectors. In the energy sector, 600 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are without electricity access – this is about 60.7 per cent of the population, and 50 per cent of businesses view a lack of reliable electricity access as a major constraint to doing business (IEA, 2019). There are also problems of access to clean and safe water: 30 per cent of Nigerians (57 million people), 10.7 per cent of Ghanaians (3 million people), and 36 per cent of Kenyans (17 million people) have no access to clean water. In the same vein, 68 per cent of Nigerians (130 million people), 78 per cent of Ghanaians (22 million people), and 67 per cent of Kenyans (32 million people) do not have access to improved sanitation (UNICEF, 2021; World Bank, 2021). Challenges also abound in Africa and across other regions of the Global South when it comes to issues of sustainable development, such as food security, gender equality, and education management. However, these challenges also provide opportunities for critical interventions through decolonised research and innovation undertaken by science and technology organisations (AUC, 2014; AUC, 2015b; African Union, 2019; African Union, 2020).

However, though many African universities that undertake research and teaching and research-only agencies and organisations spend a lot of time and resources doing research, there is an insufficient drive to provide solutions to these challenges. This seems to be the case in formal research settings where there is an overwhelming push for publication of international research papers as a basis for promotion and career enhancement. In the non-traditional research settings devoid of popular institutional structures, there is constant research to offer solutions to societal problems, but this has only had a limited impact.

Introduction

Extreme weather events have already shown us the kind of world we will bequeath our grandchildren and the later generations to come, if we continue business as usual. A rapid reduction of our carbon dioxide emissions requires a rapid shift away from fossil fuels to green energy generators. This raises the real possibility that many workers will be forced into long term unemployment or, at best, trapped in precarious employment. The Green New Deal (GND) is essentially an initiative designed to address these two major concerns.

The idea of introducing a safety net, in the form of a UBI that grants everyone, from the wealthiest to the poorest, the same amount of money, is supported by a very diverse group of people across the political spectrum. The proposition is attractive to many because this ‘free money’ avoids the stigma commonly associated with welfare payments, while in principle providing burnt-out workers with an exit strategy from the increasingly oppressive experience of paid work. But what if the reason that Silicon Valley magnates like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg vocally support the introduction of a UBI is that it offers the perfect cover for a retrograde attack on the quality of our working lives? And rather than paving the way to a utopian era of leisure and creativity, what if the introduction of a UBI becomes the basis for an entrenched two-tier economy of haves and have-nots?

In this chapter, I argue that a UBI could avoid this trap by ensuring that gainful jobs are available for all who want them, alongside a welfare state that is significantly invigorated. The UBI could thus serve a positive function as a safety net for people transitioning between jobs. Having a robust welfare state in place is absolutely essential, whether or not it accompanies a UBI regime. In its absence, we can have neither genuine equality of opportunity nor a satisfactory standard of social fairness.

Support for the UBI has been driven, in part, by the possibility of having significant job losses resulting from the AI revolution and climate change. But the challenges we face are neither technological nor economic. Rather, they are political challenges, requiring political solutions.

Introduction

Protecting Children: A Social Model was published in 2018. In this chapter we revisit some core arguments and critically interrogate these, in the light of the experience of COVID-19. Our conclusions are sobering as we reflect on what the pandemic revealed about the state, its responses and the deepening of patterns of power, wealth, inequality and exploitation (Davies et al, 2022). However, we also note that many of the core assumptions of the social model have been reinforced by what we have learned about our vulnerabilities and interdependencies during the pandemic, and we argue for the importance of engaging with the array of constituencies who are seeking to build more progressive futures.

Background

The social model of protecting children emerged from, and continues to be nourished by, those carving out spaces for resistance to old and harmful child protection policies and practices. Essentially, it challenged the following highly individualising narrative:

• • The harms children and young people need protecting from are normally located within individual families and are due to acts of omission or commission by parents and/or other adult caretakers, with the assessment of intra-familial risks and strengths core business for professionals.

• • These acts are normally understood through frames that focus on the role of individual choices or psychological and relational dynamics with considerations such as the socio-economic contexts in which families live largely screened out.

• • Developing expert practice methodologies to change behaviours and choices is a key policy objective, particularly since 2010.

• • Developing expert-led procedures, multi-agency work and professional expertise are all key to protecting children from harm.

In the social model we located our challenge to this narrative within wider understandings of how notions of responsibility and causation have shifted over the last decades, thus placing developments within child protection within a broader economic and societal canvas. We noted the shift in discourses from explanations for social problems that refer to history, backgrounds and contexts, to ones which discount these, replacing understanding with moral judgment of individuals and correction of their behaviour:

Introduction

Kinship care is when children remain within their family constellation if they cannot remain with their primary carers, usually birth parents. In high-income countries, it is typically classified into two types of care – formal and informal (Hallett et al, 2021). Formal kinship care involves social work intervention, and children are usually cared for in statutory foster placements within the child's birth family constellation. Informal kinship care, which makes up around 95 per cent of UK kinship care arrangements, is where there is no statutory involvement, and the private family arrangement is not typically known to social services (Nandy et al, 2011).

In England and Wales, these classifications can become muddled. For example, although a child under a Special Guardianship Order (SGO) or a Child Arrangement Order (COA) may not formally be in the ‘care system’, some families may still have social work intervention as part of a court-ordered care plan. This can lead such arrangements to be described in regulations as formal (MacDonald et al, 2018). This messiness concerning definitions will be returned to later in the chapter.

Kinship care is a concept and a practice that can be attractive to various political persuasions and ideologies. Kinship care not only satisfies the aim of keeping families together as much as possible but is also a cost-effective strategy for cash-strapped local authorities (McGhee et al, 2018). These two significant benefits of kinship care can lead politicians, policy makers and large reviews of children's social care to make promises to grow kinship care. Indeed, a recommendation from the section ‘Unlocking the potential of family networks’ from the MacAlister Review (2022) is: ‘Recommendation: A Family Network Plan should be introduced and enabled in law to support and give oversight to family-led alternatives to care’ (MacAlister, 2022, p 103). The reasons given for this are that ‘[d] elivering this recommendation should provide better outcomes for children. It would also be less expensive than providing foster or residential care’ (MacAlister, 2022, p 103). Increasing the use of kinship care is seen as a common-sense solution to reduce costs, improve outcomes for children, and allow the continuation of care by the community and family members for children who are past care-leaving age. However, such assumptions are made by drawing unsubstantiated conclusions on unresolved debates regarding kinship care.

Introduction

Science communication and transformation policy frameworks in South Africa

In South Africa, the proliferation of the multifaceted science communication agenda has seen calls for action from the national government for scientists and researchers to demonstrate the broader societal impact of their research. The impact involves bridging the longstanding gap between science and South African society through a myriad of platforms, tools, and formats as reflected in the National Research Foundation (NRF) Strategy 2025 (NRF, 2020), National Development Plan (NDP): Vision 2030 (NDP, 2012), and the Department of Science and Technology (renamed Department of Science and Innovation [DSI] in 2019) policies and strategies (DSI 1996, 2015, 2019). It was envisaged that closing the gap between science and society would help build a transformative and effective National System of Innovation (NSI) for the country's sustainable development, progressive democracy, and the growth of a literate, informed society. The 1996 white paper on science and technology, ‘Preparing for the 21st century’ (DSI, 1996), had long provided the overarching science, technology, and innovation (STI) vision for South Africa in the post-apartheid era. The white paper demonstrated the national government's commitment to supporting and advancing the science communication agenda in South Africa after the country became a democracy in 1994. The policy document further paved the way for policy and programmatic frameworks for science and society engagement in South Africa. To begin this process, in 1998 the first national series of public science events was launched as part of a year-long programme – ‘Year of Science and Technology’ (YEAST). The programme was launched by the DSI (then the Department of Arts, Culture, Science, and Technology). YEAST was celebrated through various science communication platforms. It became an annual event that rapidly grew in size and scope across the country. Subsequently, the science promotion directorate was established, and various strategies, interventions, and institutions at the government level to support the science communication agenda have been developed. Resources have been allocated towards these priorities. However, these development plans were enacted without a coordinated national strategic framework at the policy, implementation, and programmatic delivery levels.

The adoption of the National Science Engagement Strategy (SES) in 2015, followed by its Implementation Plan in 2017 and its 2020 Monitoring and Evaluation frameworks, marked a milestone in advancing and consolidating the thrust of the science communication agenda in the country (DSI, 2015, 2017, 2020).

In 2012, the UK government's Home Office, under the leadership of then Conservative party and Home Office Secretary Theresa May, outlined a series of policies aimed, in May's words, at creating a ‘really hostile environment for illegal migration’ (Kirkup and Winnett, 2012). Formalized in subsequent pieces of legislation on immigration in 2014 and 2016, these policies sought to implement a range of practices aimed at reducing the number of migrants living in the UK who had not been granted legal right to remain. The policy also created new procedures aimed at identifying those without legal right to remain. Measures were put in place to restrict migrants’ ability to access education, rental accommodation, driving licenses, bank accounts, and healthcare. These measures became known as the ‘Hostile Environment’ policies and have been roundly criticized by activists, religious leaders, and academics as profoundly cruel, with the UK human rights organization Liberty stating that ‘It's impossible to have a hostile environment which doesn't result in human rights abuses’ (Liberty, 2020).

This chapter explores one aspect of the broader set of hostile environment policies: those that affect access to maternity care for pregnant migrants. Although healthcare during pregnancy is defined by the UK government as ‘immediately necessary’ and therefore should never be withheld even if a woman has no means of payment, the fear of being asked for payment upfront has meant women without a legal right to remain in the UK may delay or avoid accessing needed healthcare. This chapter situates ‘accompaniment’ as a central part of activist responses to hostile environment policies for pregnant and birthing people as local projects aimed at resisting the Hostile Environment policy and the vulnerability faced by pregnant and birthing women seek to support women navigating ‘hostile healthcare’ in the UK. These projects also demonstrate how natural, alternative, or home birth movements – movements often associated with white, middle-class women's efforts to ‘choose’ place of birth and birth attendant – are linking birth politics to the concerns articulated by reproductive justice activists, in what Oparah with Black Women Birthing Justice (2015) call struggles for ‘birth justice’.

This book was borne in a period of history that has felt particularly alive with activism. From global protest movements around human rights; racial justice; women's rights; climate change/ climate justice and more, the second decade of the new millennium looks to be a time marked by mass social activism in the struggles for rights, respect, and representation. Enabled in part by social media and responsive organizing, this activity has drawn in a wide range of citizens from young people to seniors, for some of whom this was their first taste of activism. At the same time this activity has shown the power of activism to produce concrete and significant social change, from Black Lives Matter to the rise of the Climate Justice movement, and the 2022 women-led revolution in Iran ignited in response to the murder of Jina Masha Amini in police custody after being arrested by the morality police or allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. As scholars and citizens, we have been inspired by the scale, power, and urgency of this work, and hope this edition might serve to further these goals.

Based on feminism's longstanding insistence on the need for praxis as well as theory, the purpose of this book is to explore what it means to enact feminist geography in this political moment. Feminist geography has seen a groundswell of scholarship in recent years engaging with questions of social justice activism and collaborative research with activists and activist movements. This work has ranged widely by topic and cultural context, engaging themes of abolitionism, reflexivity, anti-immigration policies, and the power of social media. Activist Feminist Geographies is a sampler of some of the most exciting work in this field, drawing this scholarship together in one place so that students and scholars draw out cross-cutting themes. It will be an agenda-setting work for the sub-discipline as well as a means of tracing feminist activism through cutting-edge research. It explores research in contemporary feminist geography on social justice and activism broadly conceived, across a range of research foci, methodological approaches, and theoretical frameworks.

Introduction

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which the UK ratified in 1991, puts children and their interests and perspectives centre stage. It makes them a political priority:

Ratifying states parties are meant to uphold all of the UNCRC's provisions and obligations, unless they have registered reservations with the UN (the UK's final reservations were lifted in 2008). Article 4 requires that maximum available resources are ploughed into fulfilling the economic, social and cultural rights of children which, for a rich developed nation like the UK, would mean an end to child poverty, and certainly the end of children being admitted to hospital due primarily to malnutrition (42 school-aged children in 2020/2021 – NHS Digital, 2021) or entering the care system principally because of their family's low income (at least 50 children each year – see DfE, 2021a).

Article 20 grants ‘special protection and assistance’ to children temporarily or permanently separated from their parents. Article 39 provides that children who have endured abuse or other rights violations have the right to recover in environments which nurture their health, self-respect and dignity. The treaty's general principles – Articles 2, 3, 6 and 12 – entitle children respectively: to enjoy all of their UNCRC rights without discrimination; to have their best interests treated as a primary consideration in all matters affecting them (at individual and group level); to maximum survival and development; and to be able to express their views freely in all matters concerning them, and to then have these views given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity.

Fundamentally, the UNCRC lifts the status of children, and implores adults to have deeper, more meaningful and respectful relationships with children, resting upon the understanding that children have their own agency and integrity and that they are neither the property of their parents nor the state (Willow, 2021).

Introduction

In theory, the future of the war–state relationship seems assured in the Western world. There is a consensus that we have returned to a new era of great power competition, which has been reaffirmed by the recent Russian intervention in Ukraine. Other non-traditional threats are tacitly acknowledged but, as in the past, the driver of strategy and operations remains fixed on the high end of the military spectrum. Within this context, capital-intensive warfare, including nuclear weaponry, and the expansion of warfare into space and the cyber domain will ensure the state remains the principal agent through which increasingly expensive military technologies will be developed, deployed and sustained. This is so even though the cost of these capabilities is increasingly beyond the means of the nation state. The logic of this strategy can be questioned as demonstrated by the use of less expensive dual-use technologies, which in theory, challenge the traditional dominance of platforms like tanks, aircraft and ships. Such a development offers hope to smaller states and violent non-state actors eager to exploit these technological substitutes. However, as illustrated in the last chapter, recent operational experience indicates that specific and local conditions may have allowed cheaper disruptive technologies to prevail in engagements between Russian and Ukrainian forces. As such, it is difficult to extrapolate a meaningful trend from this analysis. In addition, countermeasures are available to challenge these technological disruptors and, for now at least, a conservative orthodoxy continues to shape and drive the war–state relationship. However, while the preservation of the status quo seems plausible and sensible over the coming decade, could this vision of war and the state set out in the previous two chapters be overturned by developments either discounted or not seen in the longer term? In this final chapter, I want to look at how technology in the future will shape and drive war and the state, and their interaction. My argument is that as we move into the fourth industrial revolution technologies, many of which had their genesis as military R&D programmes and were then spun out into the broader economy, are now feeding into politics, economics and society, and this will have significant consequences for the war–state relationship.

The historical and contemporary trajectories of societal change and transformation on socio-economic and sociocultural indicators of inequality – on race, gender, social class, and other parameters – demonstrate that progressive systemic change is neither inevitable nor to be taken for granted and presumed as sustainable in an ever forward-moving direction. Given the cautionary lessons of these historical and contemporary trends, advocates of systemic change where inclusion is concerned should continuously interrogate seemingly progressive developments. They should, furthermore, also engage their fields through solidarity, to assert reflective spaces for the considerations of innovative, globally inclusive, and actionoriented approaches that further advance the pace of change. This is the rationale and ethos that has guided and framed the conceptualisation and development of this edited collection for the science communication field.

The growing engagement with diversity, equity, and inclusion issues in the science communication field, as demonstrated by the programmes of various national, regional, and global conferences, workshops, webinars, and symposiums, are signposts of an emerging field-wide recognition of the pressing need for sociocultural inclusion. Alongside these developments, the increase in science communication journal publications and other platforms by scholars, practitioners, and advocates attests to robust scholarly efforts to engage the field with these challenging issues (Lewenstein, 2019).

Given the global political climate on issues of race and sociocultural inclusion that has emerged as a result of the exigencies of the COVID-19 pandemic, there now seems to be an even greater appetite and interest in insightful knowledge to drive, inform, and advance lasting global change and a willingness to listen to others across the divides of race, region, power, and economic wealth with mutual respect and consideration.

The cautionary aspect here is that the mainstream international discourses on diversity, equity, and inclusion in science communication are in danger of generating much handwringing and concern without seeming to drive consistent change and systematic transformations of the field. This book seeks to elucidate the various ‘elephants in the room’ of these seemingly circular discourses surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion and thereby address critical gaps in the literature, practices, capacity building, and scholarship within the science communication field regarding race and sociocultural inclusion. It also brings to the fore the many marginalised voices of so-called racialised minorities and those from Global South regions to further interrogate the globalised footprint of the science communication enterprise.