From the Atacama Desert in Chile to the Outback of Australia, from the jungle of Bolivia to the mountains of Africa, this book tells the story of Tim and Verena's adventures together. With life-endangering bus rides, trekking through spectacular scenery, swindling money-changers and epic railway journeys, the experiences were never to be forgotten. Whether just the two of them, with close friends or with fellow travellers, they let the horizons open to reveal the secrets which lay beyond...
The transnational industry surrounding assisted reproductive technology and regenerative medicine is based on the unacknowledged labour of gamete providers, surrogates and research subjects, and benefits from low labour costs in ‘enabling’ sectors such as logistics and transport. This finding calls for a comprehensive analysis of how the contemporary intersection of neoliberal capitalism and the life sciences - in short, the bioeconomy - capitalises on the body and its (re)productive capacities. The Reproductive Body at Work uptakes this challenge as it explores the relations between value production, labour and the body in one particular realm of the global bioeconomy: the South African bioeconomy of ‘egg donation’. It highlights different forms and dimensions of unacknowledged or precarious human labour that are constitutive for the procurement, brokering and circulation of oocytes as valuable resources. The analysis illustrates that the respective organisation of value and labour renegotiate what ‘the’ (re)productive body can do, which status and roles it is ascribed, which cultural and economic values it signifies and how it is experienced and enacted within a matrix of intersectional power relations. A theoretically profound contribution to the interdisciplinary debate on ‘New materialism’, The Reproductive Body at Work will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as gender studies, medical anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, political economy and science and technology studies.
Earth is a legend amongst legends; it survived the meteors that decimated the dinosaurs, it survived the coming of the great comet half its size and most importantly it survived humans, its greatest threat. In time humans realized that they could not survive without the Earth and peace emerged and with that came great civilizations. These civilizations prospered and grew; the earth was no longer enough, they needed more, more than just the moon, sun and the stars. They expanded past their moon, at first they found nothing but as their minds developed so did their technology. Finally they found it, they were scared at first but in time they embraced it and finally came to terms with the fact that they were not alone and as time would allow it, the Earth grew with the rest of the seven great planets in the solar system. There was no more need for exploration, no more room for questions, this is was an era of solutions. Solutions that brought great nations together, continents became countries and race; became a thing of the past. Peace was no longer a distant reality but as time would have it, nothing lasts forever; Earth became part of a solution, a solution that would cost it all its inhabitants, will the Earth survive once more?
In the face of limited progress toward meeting Millennium Development Goals or addressing climate change and resource degradation, increasing attention turns to harnessing the entrepreneurial, innovative, managerial and financial capacities of business for improved social and environmental outcomes. A more proactive role for business in sustainable development is especially pertinent in sub-Saharan Africa, which has been plagued by conflict and poverty but shows signs of a brighter future as the world’s second-fastest-growing region. The book considers how the socio-economic context influences the objectives of social innovation and even our definition of what we mean by social innovation. Secondly, the book aims to show how social innovation initiatives emerge and fare in context of the limited ability of many African countries to provide public goods and services.
