Search Results (265)

In Latin America, sustainable commitments towards decarbonizing hard-to-abate industrial sectors have identified hydrogen (H2) as a key enabler for the energy transition. This study develops a policy analytical framework to enhance the green H2 economy, using Argentina as the central case study. Key insights from this study include identifying often-overlooked social challenges within the H2 economy and proposing the integration of social indicators into policy design, with a particular focus on the territorial dynamics of Patagonia, labor conditions, Indigenous participation, governance, and community impacts. Drawing from Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) guideline standards and H2 justice approach, this study highlights key social hotspots that existing S-LCA tools overlook due to their lack of specific focus on regional territories and their communities. The analysis combines six social impact categories, namely, human rights, working conditions, health and safety, cultural heritage, governance, and socio-economic repercussions as recommended by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), analyzed at three levels, and complemented by the H2 justice approach for Argentina’s potential green H2 production sector. These policy recommendations aim to foster a more resilient and sustainable development of the green H2 industry. Full article

This study analyzes how state-level anti-conversion laws in India—ostensibly enacted to protect the religious freedom of vulnerable communities—can structurally generate minority–minority conflicts within Adivasi (tribal) populations. Similar patterns have surfaced across multiple regions. This study examines cases from Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand as illustrative modalities of this broader pattern: spectacular violence, everyday exclusion, and legal weaponization. The analysis identifies three mechanisms that produce these conflicts. Firstly, the “Hindu-plus” classificatory framework incorporates diverse indigenous traditions into an expanded Hindu category while positioning non-Indic religions as external. Secondly, anti-conversion laws frame religious change as a threat to indigenous cultural identity, and the state delegates enforcement to village councils, customary authorities, and judicial–administrative institutions. Thirdly, the politics of belonging translates these classificatory and enforcement practices into membership boundaries that operate through territorial control and cultural claims to authenticity, producing inclusion and exclusion. The findings suggest that anti-conversion laws operate as a political technology of protection, generating minority–minority conflicts while channeling disputes over rights into nationalist boundary-making over minority identity and belonging. Full article

In Australian education, the challenges and complexities of school leadership and the educational achievement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people are frequently debated. Each has been given individual attention, but little attention to how school leadership and educational success for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people collectively interact. While there are increasing expectations of school leaders enabling the success of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives embedded in schools, knowledge is required about the role of transformative leadership approaches that enable cultural responsiveness in the actions and practices of school leaders. Framed by Rigney’s Indigenist Research Theory (IRT) and Transformative Leadership Theory (TLT), this paper draws from a collective case study that gathers the lived experiences of school leadership from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, community, staff and school leader participants. The findings illuminate the actions and practices that school leadership enact to lead culturally responsive and inclusive school communities. The study argues the necessity of school leaders valuing and engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges, perspectives and lived experiences as critical for advancing educational success for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and education for all young people. Exploring the role of transformative leadership in the advancement of equity and excellence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education in Australia, this paper culminates in examining the implications for practice that also support the advancement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) of equity, inclusion, and quality education and lifelong learning for all. Full article

Ecological resettlement (ER), or conservation-led displacement, is widely implemented to safeguard biodiversity but often produces complex socio-ecological outcomes. This study assessed the environmental justice (both social and ecological) impacts of ER in Nepal’s Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) using an enhanced (including social, ecological, and environmental aspects) environmental justice (EJ) framework. Data were collected from 240 households across all resettled villages within the Chitwan and Parsa National Parks (NPs) of Nepal through household interviews, key informant interviews, focus groups, and field observations, supplemented by policy reviews, reports, and unpublished documents. Household demographics indicated an average family size of 5.5, gender parity (664 females, 658 males), and diverse caste/ethnic composition (ethnic: 146 households; higher caste: 64; lower caste: 6). Wealth distribution and literacy were uneven, with disparities in land ownership, assets, and social positions. Social and ecological justice outcomes were analysed using chi-square and McNemar tests. We observed a significant difference (p < 0.05) in substantive justice (food, shelter, clothing, and security) attributes before and after the resettlements. Similarly, significant improvements post-resettlement were observed in procedural and recognition justice: participation in decision-making increased from 43% to 62% (χ² = 12.34, p < 0.05). However, recognition of Indigenous knowledge and FPIC rights remained low, with 93% of households reporting inadequate acknowledgment (χ² = 198.5, p < 0.05). Distributive justice indicators, including access to compensation and forest resources, showed mixed outcomes, with 52% reporting fair compensation and 48% citing inequities (p < 0.05). Ecological outcomes also shifted significantly: forest cover decreased in 65% of surveyed areas post-resettlement, while grassland extent increased in 28% (χ² = 27.4, p < 0.05). Water source accessibility declined for 48% of households (χ² = 21.6, p < 0.05), and bushfire incidence decreased by 15% (χ² = 9.8, p < 0.05). Composite scoring revealed strong linkages between social justice deficits and ecological downturn in the resettled areas, suggesting that inadequate participation, recognition, inequitable compensation, and ecological degradation shift the issues from parks to the outside and exacerbate environmental vulnerability. These findings demonstrate that ER can achieve partial ecological objectives inside the parks but often perpetuates social inequities and ecological downturn in the resettled areas, undermining the long-term sustainability of the socio-ecological landscape. The study highlights the critical need to integrate social justice, participatory governance, and ecological monitoring into resettlement planning. Future policies should be grounded in the understanding that conservation effectiveness and social equity are mutually reinforcing, and that ignoring justice dimensions risks undermining both biodiversity outcomes and human wellbeing. Full article

Indigenous Kichwa women in the Ecuadorian Amazon experience disproportionately high levels of obstetric violence, yet their experiences remain largely absent from national demographic data. This study aims to measure the prevalence and forms of obstetric violence among Kichwa women while demonstrating the utility of community-designed demographic tools for documenting marginalized reproductive health experiences. We developed a participatory survey in collaboration with Kichwa midwives and women, several of whom are co-authors, and administered 139 structured surveys and 69 ethnographic interviews across 43 Indigenous communities in the Napo province to women who had given birth in a public hospital within the past five years. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to estimate prevalence across domains of obstetric violence, and interviews were thematically analyzed to contextualize these patterns. Findings indicate pervasive obstetric violence, including non-consensual procedures, verbal and psychological abuse, structural barriers to care, and suppression of traditional practices such as midwifery and plant medicine. Over 80% of participants reported at least one non-consensual procedure and at least one form of cultural or epistemic suppression, with most experiencing violence across multiple domains. These results position obstetric violence in the Amazon as a compounded, population-level exposure shaped by structural, environmental, and cultural determinants, underscoring the need for intercultural health reforms and Indigenous-led models of health governance. Full article

The adoption of the Anishinabek Nation Child Well-Being Law (ANCWBL) has given birth to a framework for Indigenous communities in Ontario, Canada, to exercise self-determination in governing child and family services, including service delivery and authority over policy and funding. This means an end to child and family services agencies that serve First Nations on reserves and are bound by provincial standards and legislation following a protection-based model. Instead, it begins a system of customary care that genuinely respects and supports the primary role of parent/guardian, family, and community in prevention-focused child welfare in accordance with standards based on Anishinabek cultures and the practice of consent. This conceptual essay highlights an Indigenous feminist perspective on the ANCWBL’s significance and its ability to address the historical suffering stemming from colonial child welfare practices and to institute child and family services by reinstating the rights of Indigenous children and women’s leadership in care as a communal responsibility. Full article

The purpose of this article is to present a systematic reflection on my experience teaching international English as a Second Language (ESL) students about Indigenous rights and reconciliation in a year-long university ESL course in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. Teaching materials and activities originally aimed to engage students in a pre-political form of intercultural citizenship engagement with the historical struggles and contemporary realities of Indigenous communities in Canada. Over a six-week period, I engaged in a journaling process to (1) explore the opportunities and challenges of teaching this topic in an online course environment and (2) reflect on my attempts to support and challenge students to critically examine their views and assumptions about cultural diversity in Canada and within their own cultural contexts. A qualitative analysis of the reflective notes revealed that students’ engagement with the course activities designed for this theme was limited. While students completed all required tasks, their discussions and artifacts suggest that engaging with reconciliation from a distance constitutes a complex demand for their intercultural learning. This complexity was reflected in students’ reliance on surface-level engagement rather than sustained critical or dialogic exploration. These findings raise questions about the pedagogical framing of the activities, the temporal and experiential distance of the learning context, and the role these factors may have played in constraining students’ ability to meaningfully engage with reconciliation as a lived and ethically charged process. Drawing on scholarship addressing the ethical challenges of the teacher role and positionality in teaching sensitive topics within intercultural citizenship education (ICE), this article concludes with a reflexive discussion of instructional intentions, ethical tensions, and design considerations that may inform future intercultural citizenship pedagogy in similarly constrained teaching and learning contexts. Full article

Background: In recent years, the sociopolitical landscape in the United States has shifted due to an increase in state-level legislation regarding LGBTQ+ rights, a trend that has been particularly pronounced in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. While the mental health impacts of enacted laws are increasingly documented, a critical gap remains in understanding the psychological toll of the legislative debates themselves—the prolonged periods of public discourse surrounding the restriction of rights. Methods: Utilizing data from the 2025 Queer Kentucky Survey (N = 817), this exploratory study examined the association between LGBTQ+ community belongingness and acute suicidality attributed specifically to anti-LGBTQ+ legislative debates. Data were derived from a non-probability snowball sample. Binary logistic regression models that adjusted for age, race, gender identity, education, and income were utilized. Results: Prevalence of debate-attributed suicidality was alarmingly high: 59.7% of the sample attributed increased suicidal thoughts, and 44.1% attributed a suicide attempt, specifically to the legislative debates. LGBTQ+ belongingness was a robust protective correlate, associated with significantly lower odds of both suicidal thoughts (OR = 0.61, p < 0.001) and attempts (OR = 0.41, p < 0.001). Analyses further revealed divergent risk for suicidality across demographic characteristics. Conclusions: Findings are consistent with the interpretation that legislative debates may function as distinct structural stressors associated with suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. While community belongingness may offer a critical buffer, the elevated risks among Transgender and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) populations highlight the need for intersectional, structural interventions beyond individual resilience. Full article

The Indigenous community of San Antonio Cacalotepec, located in the region of Cholula in central Mexico, has been an active witness to territorial dispossession at the hands of powerful real estate capital. This small territory—where clean water once flowed, milpas and nopales were cultivated, and Nahuatl was the everyday language—has now become the epicenter of predatory capitalism, manifested in gated communities, commercial zones, and exclusive residential developments. As a result, the original settlement and its small landholders have been segregated and excluded from the promises of modernity and progress. Nevertheless, in this last enclave, where traces of Nahuatl can still be heard, an Indigenous awareness has emerged, reclaiming identity and the right to continue naming the territory that has been lost as their own. Within this context, fieldwork carried out by the co-research group Colectiva Hilando Territorios has led to a series of community workshops with women from San Antonio Cacalotepec, together with architecture and anthropology students from Universidad de las Américas Puebla. These workshops mapped how Cacalotepec looked before massive urbanization and documented the toponyms in the Nahuatl language. The aim has been to make visible the memory of a living territory that persists, and that, despite the sale of exclusive, car-oriented commercial and residential spaces, is continually re-signified by the community as part of its identity and collective belonging in the face of dispossession. Full article

The protection of Indigenous Territories - ITs in the state of Maranhão, located in the Northeast region of Brazil, represents a major challenge at the intersection of environmental conservation and territorial rights. Situated between the Amazon and Cerrado biomes and within the MATOPIBA agricultural frontier, the state faces increasing anthropogenic pressures that accelerate land use changes, intensify fire regimes, and increase greenhouse gas emissions. This study assessed the temporal dynamics of land use and land cover and their relationship with fire in officially recognized Indigenous Territories from 1985 to 2023 using remote sensing, geoprocessing, and spatial analysis in Google Earth Engine. Indigenous Territories lost 185,327 ha of native vegetation, of which 66.9% corresponded to forest and 33.1% to savanna, yet still retained 2028.755 ha in 2023, with 81.2% classified as forest. Fire recurrence reached up to 37 events per pixel, with Araribóia, Kanela, and Porquinhos dos Canela Apãnjekra exhibiting the highest frequencies. During the 2015–2016 El Niño, Araribóia recorded the largest fire episode, with 200,652 ha burned (48.5%). Between 2013 and 2023, total greenhouse gas emissions reached approximately 709 Mt CO₂eq, with 85% originating from fires and 15% from deforestation. The findings highlight the need to integrate traditional knowledge, territorial governance, and Integrated Fire Management strategies to strengthen the protection of Indigenous Territories and support the preservation of Indigenous livelihoods in Maranhão. Full article

First Nations children remain dramatically over-represented in Australia’s Out-of-Home Care (OOHC) system, particularly in New South Wales (NSW), which continues to report the highest numbers nationally. This narrative review, grounded in a relational First Nations Standpoint Theory and decolonising research paradigms, to critically examine the systemic, structural, and historical factors contributing to these disproportionalities. Drawing on interdisciplinary evidence across law, criminology, education, health, governance studies, and public policy, the analysis centres Indigenous-authored scholarship and contemporary empirical literature, including grey literature, inquiries, and community-led reports. Findings reveal that the OOHC system reproduces the colonial logics that historically drove the Stolen Generations. Macro-level structural drivers—including systemic racism, Indigenous data injustice, entrenched poverty and deprivation, intergenerational trauma, and Westernised governance frameworks—continue to shape child protection policies and practices. Micro-level drivers such as parental supports, mental health distress, substance misuse, family violence, and the criminalisation of children in care (“crossover children”) must be understood as direct consequences of structural inequality rather than as isolated individual risk factors. Current placement and permanency orders in NSW further compound cultural disconnection, with ongoing failures to implement the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (ATSICPP). Contemporary cultural rights and Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) frameworks highlight the urgency of restoring Indigenous authority in decision-making processes. The literature consistently demonstrates that cultural continuity, kinship networks, and ACCO-led models are sort to produce stronger long-term outcomes for children. The review concludes that genuine transformation requires a systemic shift toward Indigenous-led governance, community-controlled service delivery, data sovereignty, and legislative reform that embeds cultural rights and self-determination. Without acknowledging the structural drivers and redistributing genuine power and authority, the state risks perpetuating a cycle of removal that mirrors earlier assimilationist policies. Strengthening First Peoples governance and cultural authority is therefore essential to creating pathways for First Nations children to live safely, remain connected to family and kin, and thrive in culture. Full article

High-altitude exposure poses significant health challenges to mountaineers, military personnel, travelers, and indigenous residents. Altitude-related illnesses encompass acute conditions such as acute mountain sickness (AMS), high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE), and high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE), and chronic manifestations like chronic mountain sickness (CMS). Hypobaric hypoxia induces oxidative stress and inflammatory cascades, causing alterations in multiple organ systems through co-related amplification mechanisms. Therefore, this review aims to systematically discuss the injury mechanisms and comprehensive intervention strategies involved in high-altitude diseases. In summary, these pathologies involve key damage pathways: oxidative stress activates inflammatory pathways through NF-κB and NOD-like receptor thermal protein domain-associated protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasomes; energy depletion impairs calcium homeostasis, leading to cellular calcium overload; mitochondrial dysfunction amplifies injury through mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP) opening and apoptotic factor release. These mechanisms could be converged in organ-specific patterns—blood–brain barrier disruption in HACE, stress failure in HAPE, and right heart dysfunction in chronic exposure. Promising strategies include multi-level therapeutic approaches targeting oxygenation (supplemental oxygen, acetazolamide), specific pathway modulation (antioxidants, calcium channel blockers, HIF-1α regulators), and damage repair (glucocorticoids). Notably, functional foods show significant therapeutic potential: dietary nitrates (beetroot) enhance oxygen delivery, tea polyphenols and anthocyanins (black goji berry) provide antioxidant effects, and traditional herbal bioactives (astragaloside, ginsenosides) offer multi-targeted organ protection. Full article

This study examines the perceptions and experiences of Indigenous Kankuamo women in northern Colombia regarding their sexual and reproductive rights (SRR), exploring how cultural traditions and public policies shape their exercise. The main objective was to understand the tensions between ancestral values, community leadership, and internationally recognized rights. A mixed-methods approach (qualitative–quantitative) was employed, based on semi-structured interviews conducted with 30 women. The instrument included closed Likert-type questions and open-ended items addressing perceptions, cultural practices, access to health services, and government programs. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Spearman correlations, and content analysis through thematic development. The findings revealed a strong correlation between trust in health services, accessibility, cultural compatibility, and the frequency of adolescent pregnancies. Divided perceptions regarding the role of community leaders were identified, along with a recurring demand for education and awareness-raising on sexuality and rights. Participants also noted limitations in state programs, mainly due to their limited cultural relevance. Kankuamo women face ongoing tensions between cultural preservation and sexual autonomy. Strengthening education, inclusive leadership, and policies with an ethnic and gender perspective is recommended to ensure the full exercise of their SRR. Full article

This article examines the persistent legal invisibility of the Kashmiri Pandits within international frameworks on indigenous rights and internal displacement. Despite meeting definitional criteria under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, the community remains unrecognised as either indigenous or internally displaced. Drawing on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), constructivist norm diffusion and decolonial intersectional critique, this article argues that this exclusion arises not from normative ambiguity but from geopolitical selectivity and epistemic suppression. Through doctrinal analysis of India’s treaty commitments, including its accession to the Genocide Convention (1959) and its interpretative reservation to Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (1979), this study reveals how recognition is constrained by state narratives of sovereignty and secularism. Supported by evidence from the NHRC inquiry, IDMC displacement data, and comparative experiences such as Native American recognition this paper demonstrates that categories of protection in international law are applied unevenly, depending on political compatibility rather than legal principle. It calls for renewed engagement with epistemic justice and narrative accountability in rethinking indigeneity and displacement in postcolonial contexts. Full article

Genealogy has shifted from the private domain of family history to a central mechanism in law and governance. This article examines how genealogical claims are used as evidence in three critical domains: citizenship, inheritance, and indigenous recognition. Using a comparative socio-legal approach, the study analyses statutes, case law, and interdisciplinary scholarship to reveal both convergences and divergences in evidentiary practice. Across legal systems, descent remains decisive in allocating rights and recognition, yet the hierarchy of proof varies. Civil law states privilege documentary records, common law courts increasingly rely on DNA testing, and indigenous forums continue to give authority to oral genealogies. The rapid growth of genetic genealogy databases adds new complexity. While these technologies expand opportunities for verification, they also create ethical challenges concerning privacy, consent, and the extension of genealogical data into surveillance. To address these dynamics, the article develops an evidence regime framework that treats genealogy as criteria of proof, media of proof, institutional gatekeepers, and social consequences. The findings highlight genealogy’s dual character: it enables claims to rights yet also reproduces exclusion when evidentiary hierarchies are imposed. The article argues for pluralist standards that respect documentary, genetic, and oral genealogies, offering a pathway toward more inclusive and just legal recognition. Full article