Applying the World-System theory in the conservation sciences to understand COVID-19 pandemic as a socio-environmental synergy

The pandemic of COVID-19 caused a global epidemiological, economic and social crisis. In the con-servation sciences, several studies have focused efforts on understanding the effects of declining human activities on biodiversity, understanding the pandemic as an anthropogenic "pause"of global scale. But the impact of the pandemic was not the same for everyone. Different impacts are consequences of politi-cal and ethical questions about who and what can pause or be paused, according to what authority and under what conditions. Therefore, the historical asymmetrical relations of power in the World System are crucial to understanding environmental impacts and thinking about solutions in the post-pandemic world. This article discusses why historical local-global inequalities should be an indispensable reference variable for examining the different experiences caused by the pandemic in biodiversity, aiming at ad-vancing the discussion about the society-nature relationship that the pandemic has spurred. To do so, we use the World-System Theory, initially proposed by Wallerstein, whose analytical categories allow us to situate nature conservation within broader economic, historical, and contemporary contexts. We argue for the understanding of biodiversity conservation in the context of the historical-sociological and global-local relations of the World-System. Finally, we discuss that the COVID-19 pandemic should be understood as an emergent phenomenon of the society-nature dynamic of the world-system.

Applying the World-System theory in the conservation sciences to understand COVID-19 pandemic as a socio-environmental synergy

The pandemic of COVID-19 caused a global epidemiological, economic and social crisis. In the conservation sciences, several studies have focused efforts on understanding the effects of declining human activities on biodiversity, understanding the pandemic as an anthropogenic "pause"of global scale. But the impact of the pandemic was not the same for everyone. Different impacts are consequences of political and ethical questions about who and what can pause or be paused, according to what authority and under what conditions. Therefore, the historical asymmetrical relations of power in the World System are crucial to understanding environmental impacts and thinking about solutions in the post-pandemic world. This article discusses why historical local-global inequalities should be an indispensable reference variable for examining the different experiences caused by the pandemic in biodiversity, aiming at advancing the discussion about the society-nature relationship that the pandemic has spurred. To do so, we use the World-System Theory, initially proposed by Wallerstein, whose analytical categories allow us to situate nature conservation within broader economic, historical, and contemporary contexts. We argue for the understanding of biodiversity conservation in the context of the historical-sociological and global-local relations of the World-System. Finally, we discuss that the COVID-19 pandemic should be understood as an emergent phenomenon of the society-nature dynamic of the world-system. © 2023,Ethnobiology and Conservation.All Rights Reserved.

Lacan and the environment

In this exciting new collection, leading and emerging Lacanian scholars seek to understand what psychoanalysis brings to debates about the environment and the climate crisis. They argue that we cannot understand climate change and all of its multifarious ramifications without first understanding how our terrifying proximity to the real undergirds our relation to the environment, how we mistake lack for loss and mourning for melancholy, and how we seek to destroy the same world we seek to protect. The book traces Lacan's contribution through a consideration of topics including doomsday preppers, forest suicides, Indigenous resistance, post-apocalyptic films, the mathematics of climate science, and the relevance of Kant. They ask: What can you do if your neighbour is a climate change denier? What would Bartleby do? Does the animal desire? Who is cleaning up all the garbage on the internet? Why is the sudden greening of the planet under COVID-19 no help whatsoever? (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)