The sociocultural sustainability of livestock farming: an inquiry into social perceptions of dairy farming

Over the past 50 years, the scale and intensity of livestock farming have increased significantly. At the same time, Western societies have become more urbanised and fewer people have close relatives involved in farming. As a result, most citizens have little knowledge or direct experience of what farming entails. In addition, more people are expressing concerns over issues such as farm animal welfare. This has led to increasing public demand for more sustainable ways of livestock farming. To date, little research has been carried out on the social pillar of sustainable livestock farming. The aim of this study is to provide insights into the sociocultural sustainability of livestock farming systems. This study reviews the key findings of earlier published interdisciplinary research about the social perceptions of dairy farming in the Netherlands and Norway (Boogaard et al., 2006, 2008, 2010a and 2010b) and synthesises the implications for sociocultural sustainability of livestock farming. This study argues that the (sociocultural) sustainable development of livestock farming is not an objective concept, but that it is socially and culturally constructed by people in specific contexts. It explains the social pillar of the economics/ecological/social model sustainability in terms of the fields of tensions that exist between modernity, traditions and naturality - 'the MTN knot' - each of which has positive and negative faces. All three angles of vision can be seen in people's attitudes to dairy farming, but the weight given to each differs between individuals and cultures. Hence, sociocultural sustainability is context dependent and needs to be evaluated according to its local meaning. Moreover, sociocultural sustainability is about people's perceptions of livestock farming. Lay people might perceive livestock farming differently and ascribe different meanings to it than experts do, but their 'reality' is just as real. Finally, this study calls for an ongoing collaboration between social and animal scientists in order to develop livestock farming systems that are more socioculturally sustainable.     

Assessing the performance of volunteers in monitoring streams

1. Citizens are concerned about the quality of water resources and many participate in monitoring activities, though doubts remain about the quality of the data volunteers collect. We trained volunteers to collect benthic macroinvertebrates using professional protocols. Of the seven stream sites sampled by volunteer crews, six sites were also sampled by professional crews.
2. In the laboratory, volunteers used morphological features to identify as many different taxa as possible within the major insect orders; their identification was approximately to family. Volunteers calculated five metrics: total taxon richness, richness of three key groups (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera), and percentage dominance of the three most abundant taxa. All metrics were strongly correlated with (a) the percentage of urbanized area in the catchment and (b) the metrics derived from a more complete taxonomic identification by a professional scientist. Taxon richness metrics declined with urban development, while percent dominance increased.
3. An overall summary multimetric index was used to compare the field and laboratory procedures of volunteers and professionals. Using an ANOVA model, we detected no significant difference between field samples collected by volunteers and professionals. The variance of index values associated with differences between crews was zero. The ability of the index to detect significant differences among sites (statistical power) improved by only 13% for assessments based on professional laboratory identification instead of volunteer laboratory identification.
4. Citizen volunteers, when properly trained, can collect reliable data and make stream assessments that are comparable to those made by professionals. Data collected by volunteers can supplement information used by government agencies to manage and protect rivers and streams.     

Citizens’ understanding of welfare of animals on the farm: An empirical study

Many people believe that welfare standards for nonhuman animals on farms need to be improved. However, the definition of farm animal welfare (FAW) remains unclear, as different disciplines have developed competing understandings of FAW. Some studies have investigated citizens’ understanding of FAW through quantitative surveys. This study combined both closed-ended and open-ended questions and compared the findings from the different types of questions. For the open-ended question, respondents mostly named criteria in the categories of “housing system” and “management practice”; however, for the closed-ended question, the category “animal health” was most important. These findings suggest that not only whom you ask determines what comprises animal welfare, but how you ask. These findings should be considered when developing new animal welfare programs to increase the likelihood that the new programs will be accepted by the broader public and meet its expectations. In particular, improvements concerning animal health need to be publicized and clearly communicated to citizens, as health-related aspects are important to many people even though those aspects may not be the first thing they mentioned when asked.     

Global South cosmopolitans: the opening and closing of the USA–Mexico border for Mexican tourists

The US government has simultaneously increased efforts to close its border to unauthorized migrants, and opened the border to increasing flows of tourists from Mexico. In this paper I focus on the experiences of Mexican tourists who are able to freely cross the USA–Mexico border with US visas, given that their unique status as tourists from Mexico is an important element to consider because it organizes their daily lives, their moral understandings, and their experiences across the USA–Mexico border. I show how Global South cosmopolitans from Mexico benefit from class privilege in Mexico, but become legally vulnerable in the USA due to their racialization as Mexicans and lack of citizenship rights. This paper draws on ethnographic data and in-depth interviews collected in the border town of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico between July 2009 and August 2010.     

基于老年人生理特征的健康传播策略研究

本文在引入健康传播概念的基础上,阐明了健康传播活动对促进老年个体健康的意义.通过对老年人心血管系统、视觉系统和神经系统等功能退化的分析,提出了针对老年人生理特点的人际层面和大众层面的传播策略.在案例分析的基础上,本文进一步提出了建立集大众传播、人际传播等多种传播方式为一体的新型传播方式的构想.     

Brexit,British People of Colour in the EU-27 and everyday racism in Britain and Europe

This paper foregrounds an understanding of Brexit as unexceptional, as business as usual in Britain and Europe. It reports on original empirical research with British People of Colour who have settled elsewhere in Europe, to bring into view an original perspective to understandings of what Brexit means to Britons living in Europe, and to consider what these testimonies offer to emerging social science research on Brexit. As we argue, focussing on the testimonies of British People of Colour living in the EU-27 offers a unique lens into how Brexit is caught up in everyday racism, personal experiences of racialization and racial violence, and longer European histories of racialization and racism. Importantly, these experiences precede and succeed Brexit, taking place in both Britain and other European Union countries.     

《天津市第三套市民广播体操 》生理负荷评价

目的:为迎接2017年第十三届全国运动会在天津市举办,天津市体育局组织相关专家研制创编了第三套市民广播体操,本文旨在客观评价第三套市民广播操的生理负荷状况。方法:随机选取天津市社区部分市民和普通大学生作为受试对象,男性35名,女性55名。将受试者分为:青年组(20～30岁)40名、中老年组(50～65岁)50名。在运动前给受试者佩带心率表实时测定心率和能量消耗,并背负便携式气体收集仪测定气体代谢参数,连续测定受试者完成一套广播体操运动中生理指标的变化。结果:青年组、中老年组受试者完成一套广播体操(3＇30＂)的平均心率分别为(126.35±14.92)beats/min、(102.05±12.64)beats/min,最高心率分别达到(140.79±17.75)beats/min、(117.18±16.37)beats/min;其能量消耗、肺通气量和摄氧量水平约相当于安静时3～5倍;运动结束3 min内心率等指标均恢复到运动前相对安静水平。结论:天津市第三套市民广播体操动作难度和生理负荷较适中,属于中低强度有氧运动,适宜20～65岁人群操练,长期坚持能够达到增强体质和提高心肺机能的锻炼效果。     

Effects of environmental ozone on the lung function of senior citizens

Measurements with a body plethysmograph of lung function parameters and reports of unusual complaints or irritations were taken from 41 senior citizens in the situations where they usually spend their daytime hours. The subjects belonged to a group commonly assumed to be at risk from ozone. Each subject was examined on 8 days both in the morning and in the afternoon. The object was to obtain for every subject an equal distribution of measuring days between those with elevated ozone concentrations (maximum 0.5 h mean values between 1.00 and 4.00 p.m. of at least 0.050 ppm) and those with low ozone concentrations (maximum 0.5 h mean values between 1.00 and 4.00 p.m. of at most 0.040 ppm). The results showed no relevant ozone related effects on the lung function parameters or the subjective reports of irritations. Thus there was no indication that senior citizens represent a group at particular risk with respect to moderately elevated concentrations of environmental ozone, as occur in central Europe.