11
1
(5-11)
Analysis of Government Policy for the Sustainable Production of Palm Oil in Indonesia
Keshia Saradima Indriadi
The Non-Atheist Mass
(13-15)
Catrinel Radoi
Europeanization of the Baltic Sea
(17-21)
A Step Towards Sustainable Development
josina bothe
Doctora! Aporto!
(23-27)
INTERVIEW
Jennifer Hong
Exploring the Price of Beauty
Nanocosmeceuticals
Dora Vrhoci
(35-41) A DIALECTICAL FUSION OFMEMORY, REMEMBRANCE, AND FORGETTING
KAZUO ISHIGURO’S THE BURIED GIANT
Umme Aiemun Yousuf
5 6 7
An unlikely convergence
Ecological Feminism
(43-48)
Piotr G.S. Schulkess
(29-33)
1 2 3 4
The Scandalous Palm Oil Affair
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The early 20 th century was a time of change and turmoil. The First World War saw empires smash themselves to pieces in the French countryside, in the scorching deserts of the Middle East, and the frozen wastelands of Eastern Europe. When the guns fell silent in November 1918, people hoped for stability and peace. Instead, the very fabric of society changed. The far left and hard right entered the political arena, technology changed the way people interacted, travelled and thought, and female emancipation and suffrage was at long last entering the mainstream. In a time when everything was uncertain, previous expressions of culture became insufficient: the long-lasting stability of realist modes of stylistic expression started to crumble and a chaotic army of avant-garde movements marched its way onto the cultural scene. Dadaism, an artistic movement pioneered in Zurich, rejected the normal. Intellectual conformity, nationalism and oppression were the causes of the misery which had defined the previous decade, and should be relegated to the dustbin of history. Dadaism spread around the world, from New York to Tokyo to Tbilisi, but it was unstable and was absorbed by other movements in the mid-1920s.
However, the factors which allowed Dadaism to prosper – political instability, a technological revolution and wealth disparity – are present today as well. There is less war, thankfully, but authoritarianism is on the rise from Beijing to Washington and everywhere in between. The world is more peaceful than ever, but it is far from stable. Research into and use of artificial intelligence has exploded, and the internet has revolutionised the way we interact with each other and gain information, but has raised questions on privacy and ethics. Societies are becoming more polarised – some are calling for more diversity, some question the value of open borders. Women now have the right to vote, but the #MeToo movement has shown that systemic discrimination is alive and well. The world has moved on since 1918, but drawing parallels between then and now is easy. In this issue of Honours Review, Dadaism is the art style of choice. It protested against the logic of the time, and objected to the trajectory of society by deconstructing the dominant narrative of reason and turning it into an upside-down collage of absurdity and grotesque. The illustrations in this issue experiment with different collage techniques and mirror the melange of the articles and themes which are featured in this volume: Honours Review 11 is a mixture of academic articles, a book review, an interview, and our first ever creative writing piece. Although Dadaism bursted a century ago, today, few would question the relevance of an artistic movement which rallied against capitalism, consumerism and inequality.
Maybe it’s time for a comeback? The editorial Board
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The Scandalous Palm Oil Affair
Introduction
In his climate change documentary Before the Flood, Leonardo DiCaprio flies over the Leuser Ecosystem in Sumatra, Indonesia |1|, where as far as the eye can see rows and rows of palm trees are grown for harvesting of its fruits, from which the highly problematic commodity of palm oil can be extracted. Palm oil is a type of edible vegetable oil derived from the palm fruit, which is used as a cooking oil in tropical parts of the world but also found as an ingredient in many commercial food products in other parts of the world due to its relatively cheap cost. More recently, palm oil has been used as a proponent for biofuel as the trend for “greener” fuels continue to grow. Though DiCaprio travels to the region only to lament the endangerment of the Sumatran orangutan and investigate the rampant CO2 emissions caused by these plantations, the palm oil controversy covers much more than just that.
The big question with any commodity these days is whether or not it is “sustainable”, and there are three pillars of sustainability that one must look at in order to measure it: social, environmental, and economic sustainability. Therefore, in order to comprehensively investigate the palm oil controversy, one must look at how its widespread production and consumption affects the environmental, social, and economic development of all the parties it influences. This article will look at the impact of palm oil production on economic development in the world’s largest producer of palm oil, Indonesia. The party that has the largest influence on the outcome of the palm oil debate is the government and the policies they choose to implement regarding the issue. Thus, the aim of this article is to analyze what kind of policy the Indonesian government should take regarding palm oil production in terms of social, economic, and environmental sustainability.
Illustration Ellen Offringa
Keshia Saradima Indriadi ( Chemical Engineering )
Analysis of Government Policy for the Sustainable Production of Palm Oil in Indonesia
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The Environmental Misconception
oil. In January 2018, the EU approved a bill that would limit the amount of crude palm oil (CPO) to be imported as a biofuel, amid heavy protests from government officials and farmers alike from Indonesia and Malaysia, the top CPO exporters in the world |4|. While the EU has noble intentions of improving the health of the Earth through this new ban, there’s a lot more to be considered for the nations actually producing the palm oil.
The ranking of good or bad fuel sources is done based on how much CO2 gets released in every step of its production – from the planting and growing of the crop to harvesting, processing into a biofuel, transport of the fuel to markets, and finally the burning of the fuel itself. It was originally thought that biodiesels, would make for more CO2 efficient fuels not because they release less CO2 when burned but because the plantation of the crops for fuel will absorb a lot of CO 2 in the process, leading to a carbon neutral cycle. However, it is now known that one liter of palm oil biodiesel releases 1.7 times more CO2 than regular fossil fuels |3|. It is thus clear that palm oil was never a good substitute fuel, but the damage has been done as the effect of this foreign demand continues to make an impact on the countries that produce the most palm
Palm oil accounts for 10% of Indonesia’s total exports |6|, a greater percentage than any other commodity. Palm oil is thus vital to Indonesia’s continued economic growth by contributing to state revenues and providing jobs in rural areas. The huge increase in palm oil production throughout the years (1) can be seen as a result of both worldwide demand and government intervention intended to promote development through increased employment, and as such the government has set a goal of doubling palm oil production by 2020 |7|.
“It is now known that “Most consumers one liter of palm oil would not biodiesel releases 1.7 realize it, but palm oil times more CO 2 than is in 50% of regular fossil fuels.” products on supermarket In 2016 alone, Indonesia has produced 35 million tons of palm oil, more than any shelves.” other nation in the world |5|.
(1) Indonesia palm oil production by year
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The Economic Side
Before getting into the meat of the ethical debate surrounding palm oil production, it is perhaps best to get a clear picture on why palm oil is so notoriously known as an evil commodity. Most consumers would not realize it, but palm oil is in 50% of products on supermarket shelves |2|. In addition to that, laws to increase use of biofuels in place of normal fossil fuels in the EU have increased demand of palm oil, as it is an easily accessible fuel source. However, just because it is plant-based does not mean that palm oil biofuels are actually better than fossil fuels.
However, since the negative consequences of palm oil production are well known and scientifically established, they are also under pressure to do everything in a suitably sustainable manner. According to UNDP Indonesia Coordinator Beate Trankmaan, the government has a “big strategy to achieve the balance between environmental protection and the economic growth that is needed to reduce poverty and enhance the living standards of all people across this vast country” |7|. Nevertheless, even with additional precautionary measures to limit the environmental impacts of palm oil, there is no questioning that at this rate of production it will do nothing but harm to the country’s rich natural resources.
Unfortunately, the RSPO doesn’t always follow through with their promises so the image of sustainability is not always accurate as well. It is thus the Indonesian government’s ethical dilemma to decide whether they should continue to promote palm oil’s widespread production and exports. On the one hand, palm oil production severely destroys the natural ecosystems of much of the country’s rainforests and greatly increases its carbon emissions, but on the other it also boosts the rapidly growing economy that the government wants the country to have.
“Poor rural families who become palm oil workers are provided with a more “Palm oil accounts sustainable income, for 10% of Indonesia’s which brings steadier total exports, healthcare and a greater percentage education along with than any other it.” commodity shelves.”
Moreover, the “sustainability” of any plantation is usually investigated and certified by outside organizations such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an organization whose aim is to transform markets to make sustainable palm oil the norm |8|. Their criteria for sustainable palm oil include fair labor practices, not clearing any forests with a large concentration of biodiversity, and reducing the use of pesticides and fires.
In fact, economic development is stated as one of the main reasons the Indonesian government continues to promote palm oil production, as it is estimated that it could potentially take 6 million lives out of poverty across Indonesia |9|. Poor rural families who become palm oil workers are provided with a more sustainable income, which brings steadier healthcare and education along with it.
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A 2016 Guardian article interviewed various local women who work on their own plantations, and they reportedly say that “the benefits of the palm oil industry in [their] village, such as better wages, more employment opportunities and flexible hours, outweigh any negative consequences” |10|. Therefore, despite probably knowing the negative environmental consequences of palm oil or even the health risks of working in the industry, these local people would still prefer to work in the sector for the sake of their financial sustainability. As the local people form the party that is most directly affected by palm oil production, it is important to consider their view when looking at the relevant ethical issues.
The Human Rights Side
It is estimated that 4.5 million people in Indonesia depend on palm oil as their primary source of income, so any kind of change to its demand and price would affect the livelihoods of all these families |8|. The government then has a responsibility to these people to help them fulfill their socioeconomic needs by not imposing policy that limits the use of palm oil.
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However, while statistical data show improvement on the rural scale and some online interviews assert that the local people are happy with widespread palm oil production, many non-profit organizations claim that the palm oil industry is rife with illegalities and does not actually improve citizens’socioeconomic conditions. Most recently, Amnesty International reported that plantations owned by Wilmar International Limited – the world’s largest palm oil producer with control over 43% of the world palm oil market – are guilty of various forms of labor rights abuses. These include child labor, forced labor, gender discrimination, people being paid below the minimum wage, and workers suffering injuries from exposure to toxic
chemicals |11|. The results of these investigations also prompted the NGO to call for intervention from the Indonesian government to stop these abuses happening under their watch, which the government has yet to do |12|. Without the fulfillment of even these basic human rights for the workers, it therefore cannot be said that working in palm oil also helps to improve these people’s socioeconomic growth and development. The ethical theory of utilitarianism states that the most ethical course of action is the one that brings happiness to the greatest amount of people, and in this case the large amount of people who work in these plantations do not seem to be getting “happiness” if they are being overworked and underpaidon a daily basis. Therefore, the government should intervene with these companies’ plantations in order to bring happiness to as many of their citizens as they can.
“Many non-profit organizations claim that the palm oil industry is rife with illegalities and does not actually improve citizens’ socioeconomic conditions.”
The Commercial Side
production leads to large CO2 emissions and unfair treatment of workers. However, one party that has not been considered in this analysis so far is the country of Indonesia itself and all the people who live in it as one moral entity. Continuing to expand palm oil production and increasing exports will definitely boost the country’s economy, which increases government revenue and with that the government can increase their spending on other things vital to the people like improved infrastructure or more free healthcare. This is certainly the biggest party in consideration in the ethical dilemma and they will be given happiness through this action so actually from a utilitarian perspective the palm oil production must continue to expand.
The Ethical View
Amnesty International further reported that most companies who buy from Wilmar are unaware of the labor rights abuses that occur in their supply chain and still claim to use “sustainable” palm oil in their products. This problem stems from an over reliance on sustainability certification from the RSPO as it appears that their certification is not always a guarantee of fair labor practices and have been wrongfully given to Wilmar suppliers |11|. Companies unfortunately still trust this certification and do not conduct their own investigation into any labor right violations in their supply chain, which as a company they should have done to fulfill their corporate social responsibility. Many big companies are wrongly profiting from unsustainable palm oil production, which is unjust and thus unethical. Furthermore, if it is discovered that these companies do not in fact comply with sustainable practices, this might affect their reputation, popularity, and earnings in the market. From the perspective of these companies who use palm oil in their products, it is in their best interest (and also their moral responsibility) to reduce the amount of palm oil in the market, as it is also proven that the “sustainable” production of this product is difficult to ascertain. With their perspective in consideration, the government thus also has a bigger motivation to intervene in the widespread palm oil production in the country. Looking at the perspective of companies, local people who work in the industry, and the government themselves, the evidence seems to suggest that palm oil is largely unsustainable in terms of social and economic development because they do not promote fair labor practices and it is also unethical due to a lack of transparency from their “certification” schemes. If the issue is looked at from a purely deontological ethical standpoint, the action itself of letting palm oil continue is unethical for the government because its
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Conclusion
Therefore, what the government should do is keep increasing their investments into palm oil but of course also take extra precautions to ensure that the economic development they aim to achieve is performed in a sustainable way. Their policy should change to include more investigations into the sustainability practices themselves, and not only rely on certifications from the RSPO. Based on the results of those investigations, the government could also implement proper labor laws and policy that would ensure fair treatment of the workers involved, and they could even introduce sanctions for companies who do not comply to correct sustainability practices as an incentive to become more sustainable. In this way, the country’s economy could still be helped in a way that is not detrimental to its people and resources in the future.
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References
1. Stevens, Fisher. 2016. Before The Flood. Film. National Geographic. 2. Greenpalm :: What Types Of Products And Industries Use Palm Oil?". 2018. Greenpalm.Org. http://greenpalm.org/about-palm- oil/what-is- palm-oil/what- is-palm- oil-usedfor. 3. Nonhebel, Sanderine. 2017. Interview with Dr. Sanderine Nonhebel. Interview by Laura Gutierrez & Keshia Indriadi. In person. Groningen. 4. Jakarta Post. 2018. Jokowi 'Strongly Protests' EU Stance On RI Palm Oil;. The Jakarta Post. http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/03/09/jokowi-strongly- protests-eustance-on- ri-palmoil.html. 5. Indonesia Palm Oil Production By Year (1000 MT);. 2018. Indexmundi.Com. https://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=id&commodity=palm-oil&graph=production. 6. OEC - Indonesia (IDN) Exports, Imports, And Trade Partners;. 2018. Atlas. Media.Mit.Edu. https://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/idn/. 7. Newport, Samantha. 2015.;Indonesia Government Addresses Deforestation Challenges In Its Aim To Double Palm Oil Production By 2020". UNDP. http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2015/03/11/indonesiagovernment-addresses- deforestation-challenges- in-its- aim-to- double-palmoil-production- by2020.html. 8.Sustainable Palm Oil". 2018. RSPO.Org. https://rspo.org/about/sustainable-palm- oil. 9. Goenadi, Didiek Hadjar. 2008.;PERSPECTIVE ON INDONESIAN PALM OIL PRODUCTION;. Agritrade.Org. http://www.agritrade.org/events/documents/ Goenadi2008.pdf. 10. Lake, Rebecca. 2016.;The Women Working In Indonesia’S Palm Oil Sector In Pictures #Internationalwomensday;. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/ sustainable-business/gallery/2016/mar/08/women-working- indonesia-palmoil-in- pictures. 11. Amnesty International. 2016. The Great Palm Oil Scandal: Labor Abuses Behind Big Brand Names. Ebook. Amnesty International. https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ASA2151842016ENGLISH. PDF. 12. Amnesty International. 2017. ;Amnesty International Rebukes Wilmar’s Tactics And Calls On Indonesian Government To Investigate Abuses By Palm Oil Sector;. https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ASA2158192017ENGLISH. PDF.
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The Non-Atheist Mass
Catrinel Radoi (International relations and organisations)
I opened the box of my new iPhone and did not even read the instructions. Who reads the instructions of their new smartphone? We all know how to operate it. Turn it on, insert the sim card and the rest doesn’t even matter as long as I get all my social media platforms installed. I bend my knees and put my hands together and start a slow prayer; uttering words I learnt in the naive days of my childhood. I didn’t need to read the entire Bible to know what I am praying for and who I am praying to as long as I don’t forget to show gratefulness. Panic. Why isn’t it working? Opened the manual and read it hoping that I could soon connect. “Press Home to unlock, this iOS brings its users closer to their thoughts, your fingerprint will unlock your device if the strength of its user’s press will confirm further engagement to addiction. This is not an accessory. You are, therefore you can receive calls, answer texts and share photos. Let the world know you can now be part of it’s largest community.” I stood up and put my hands in the pockets of my coat. Tobacco pieces, crumbled flyers, keys, empty pens and some change, they were all there. I left the change I had in the church’s box giving God a reason to answer my prayers. I am never achieving anything. Why isn’t it working? Opened the Bible and read it hoping I could soon connect. “The less you understand, the happier you’ll be. Believe the ones who praise the skies and doom the grounds. This is not a simulation. You were born with an unshaken halo, thus you’re safe, our community will protect you from the others”. Don’t forget to charge your phone and make your cross, now you can rest.
The irony. We are fighting wars against those without reason to their actions, but aren’t we all the martyrs of our own need of submissiveness? After the Idustrial Revolution and the first air balloon that proved that men can fly, we started singing independence odes and shedding blood in the name of science and technology. We can now have more, spend more, wish for more thanks to capitalism. As depression and anxiety blur more and more unawakened new spirits, trends are comfortable. A modelled diversity is being promoted, blaming misfits for not building almost identical techcognition systems. Our knees will stop shaking after we will receive our judgements. “Your profile is so cool, maybe we should hang out more”. Our cult doesn’t need crusades to create victims. This internalised revolution will be televised and everybody’s watching.
Illustration Roos Winter
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Religious faith became a close synonym for those with their eyes wide shut, but are we loosening the ties of religion or are we just redefining it in lacking comprehension? People used to have their unseen Gods which would guide their actions and make their presence on Earth valuable. The existence of one would be confirmed by the undoubted presence of a moral guiding entity that would offer redemption; while the morality of individuals used to be doubted by querying one’s compliance to religious norms and rituals and its assimilation of a prophetic life to that of its own. As we are all sinners, the normalisation of making mistakes by a process under which anybody would be forgiven, gave us a sense of appurtenance. The wider the gap between the harm of the sins, the lonelier would one find itself. We were encouraged to believe in another face of ours: the one alive and the one after life. The one which we could have controlled more being the less desired one. The question that arises is: how is this any different to what we have now? Contesting what was praised by mirroring it to reality and observing a distorted reflection brought us closer to contemporary. Solely because the process of the reflection became limpid, we stopped looking in the mirror as a phobia of seeing the differences: between us and the image, and between our image and the promoted as ideal. Enjoying a double life is a facility of the postmodern world in which invisible wires squeeze masses together without even making them touch. We trust our emotions and actions that are being generated or influenced by lifeless mechanisms at least as much as those produced by direct human interaction. We’re only one click away. The concept of pressing a button is as valuable as that of life as it can receive infinite meaning. We are scared of sending a message and surprised to receive one; we feel fear of not receiving appreciation for when we are exposing certain parts of our lives and proud when gratified; we filter everything and trust what has already been filtered by others as it would be natural.
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We learned to take for granted what somebody’s is sharing with us even though we are not present to see it or feel it on our owns and yet, the wish of being present fades away. We don’t really need to be there as long as we know everything that is happening. We are sometimes nervous about being there or about breaking the first border of virtuality with the second one ofreality. We do not feel the same joy of seeing without sharing, and the worst part is not that we need to share, but our need to match the share with our newborn personality and then, receive appreciation for that. Unconsciously we are feeling closer or distant to somebody by giving uncertain interpretations to its behaviour from behind a screen. If you are not part of the web, you might as well not be at all. The possibility of being reached without being actually reached is now a standard of whether somebody still exists or not. Endangered species- humans without any online activity for longer than 24 hours. What are we doing now that our texts are not replied by our friends? Maybe we should call the police soon or talk to their families, they can not be asleep for that long. Our direct communication ability is overruled by the facility of instant sharing. We should not be surprised when assumptions about our wellbeing are tested in a world in which reliance is being put on the aptitudes of a device. Letting go of privacy or censorship is now part of a defence system in front of accusations of dishonesty or danger.
“You’re hiding something for me, you did not reply my text for too long, what were you doing? You used to always let me know and now you are telling me you were out of battery; I suppose you weren not alone.” We feel obliged to give justification and mend our actions according to a pattern which could be followed by the other people surrounding us too. We think we buy our security by joining a surveillance environment when we are just selling our real freedom by committing ourselves to a digitalised identity governed by unwritten rules of appropriateness. The sense of individuality and authenticity became a trade-off. We invest time in our virtual selves which for some of us requires more attention than the one that’s being duplicated. We praise a platform of fast recognition of unreal attributes, recognition that is being made by other unreal identities. As Heaven was a separate place from Earth in which nonhuman rules were guiding the believers, social media and the World Wide Web do the same. The harm of a virtual space that gives value and builds beliefs of the wrong and the right is mostly ignored as we enjoy the appreciation or the extremely fast pace at which what was not appreciated yesterday can be appreciated tomorrow. We are welcomed in living the mistake dichotomy: you can now make a fool of your self in reality and virtually, while the virtual one is witnessed by several instances. On the other side, your online behaviour doesn’t need that much time to reconstruct itself as claims do not need action and not to worry, your behaviour within society can be easily fixed using the virtual code. “I pretended not to see her cause I didn’t really want to talk to her, I’ll just send a text later”. We are taking for granted the presence of others and the value of ours and their time.
We lose our patience with the people around us and with ourselves because the change expected should happen as fast as uploading a photo. Time is measure varies with the context in which it is determined. One day is the equivalent of one minute measured in human patience placed in the virtual dimension. The pace of reality is overestimated misleading us into an artificial development trap. In a permanent race with expanding standards, we are awaiting a touchdown that never happens. Congratulations, you are about to reach the finish line: you can almost be used as a device! Under God’s eye, time was eternal, but why are we guiding our decisions based on a subsequent judgement? Why are we denying survival without any boxes to check? We are not leaving our houses, not waking up on time, not being present in certain places, not finding calm when we are not with our phones. Absurdly, the accommodation of untouchable virtual habits into our day to day lives spawns frustration and confusion. We are connected in the sickest ways and we are not even realising its severity as we persevere in integration through normalisation. I shouldn’t bow my head while walking. I should breathe. I was there even though I don’t have a picture. I have one identity and that is real. I can’t be in two places and if I try I’ll lose at least one of them. I am not trading my freedom after years of contesting authority over it. This is not a game, I am not one click away from progress. I should work. This is not a prayer, I am not one good deed away from fulfilment. I should understand. I am safe as long as I have myself.
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Europeanization of the Baltic Sea A Step Towards Sustainable Development Unfortunately, the Baltic Sea is not only the youngest sea but also one of the most polluted, where the ecosystem has suffered from the exploitation of resources (e.g.,fish). Additionally, invasive exotic species, oil discharges and chemicals have greatly contaminated the Sea |6| creating common challenges for all nine countries. A new form of governance that goes beyond the national borders is necessary in order clean up the Baltic Sea and to ensure sustainable development |3|. As Russia remains the only non-EU country in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR), it does not come as a surprise that there is a tendency towards Europeanization. This article will investigate why it is efficient to transfer the governance of the BSR partially to the EU, what strategy the EU developed in order to conquer pressing challenges and finally, it summarizes the successes of the Strategy and whether the Europeanization contributes to a sustainable development in the BSR.
“Saving the sea includes, ‘clearing the water in the sea’, contributing to a ‘rich and healthy wildlife’ and setting ‘safeguards for clean and safe shipping.”
Josina Bothe ( international and european law )
With a surface area of 420 000 km², nine surrounding countries |1| and 17 % of the European Union (EU) population |2|, the Baltic Sea and its encircling area is an important territory within Europe. The end of the Cold War led to the development of a progressive region, including effective networking and cooperation between the adjacent countries, with the emergence of the EU especially contributing to this progress |3|. The youngest sea on the planet is unique in several ways: ecosystem services provide extraordinary flora and fauna; a good quality of water is enjoyed by many tourists on several beaches; and, additionally, a fishing industry contributes substantially to the local economies |4|. The uniqueness of the sea can be attributed to the brackish water, a combination of both salt and fresh water, which results in salinity variation. The level decreases from 25 parts per million (ppm) in the north to 8 ppm in the south and even to 2 ppm in the Gulf of Finland. These exceptional conditions are only suitable for a few species |5|.
“Unfortunately, the Baltics Sea is not only the youngest sea, but also one of the most polluted seas.” Illustration Collaboration
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Limits of National Governments
Europeanization offers a pathway for a greater interconnection of power systems, an improvement of the transportation infrastructure and an enhancement of environmental performance within the BSR. Moreover, it constitutes a framework for advanced cross-border markets and an increased networking of researches and innovators |9|. In other words, the cooperation in the BSR presents a broader perspective, resulting in more efficient problem-solving, based on the
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The EUSBSR, adopted in 2009, is the first macro-regional strategy in Europe |9|. The three pillars “saving the sea, connecting the region and increasing prosperity” represent the key challenges of the Strategy and lay down the guidance for policies |10|. Saving the sea features: “clearing the water in the sea”, contributing to a “rich and healthy wildlife”, and setting safeguards for “clean and safe shipping”. Doubtlessly, the desirable results contain improving the environmental status in order to guarantee better conditions for the tourism and hospitality industry. The connection between the regions can be improved through adequate terms of transport and ensured energy supply. Furthermore, the EU strives for a better collaboration in combating transnational crimes, which is also closely connected to the objective of creating an effective network of people in the region.
European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR)
The governance was originally located in the hands of national state actors. However, the protection of the Baltic Sea is a project which requires a systemic and universal application of collective policies. The region was initially fragmented into two parts. Whereas Germany, Sweden, Finland and Denmark had comparatively high environmental standards, Poland and the three Baltic countries did not meet the European norms |3|. The clean-up of the Baltic Sea requires high-level collaboration between countries and a common compliance with the EU environmental policy. Consequently, tasks were increasingly delegated from a national to a supranational level, but also to NGOs and no hyphen actors |3|.
increased knowledge through larger networks, which would not be possible under national governance. (1) “Van Gend en Loos” is the most important case in European Law. The European Court of Justice made it clear that the European legal order was a new legal order that was directly applicable in the Member States. Consequently, EU law itself defines “the nature and effect of European law within the national legal orders” |18|.
European law constitutes a legal order, set out in “Van Gend en Loos” (1), in which the member states have limited their sovereign rights |7|. Consequently, it can govern the BSR more influentially than any other legal order. However, the principle of subsidiarity – the idea that a central authority should only carry out tasks which cannot be carried out on a local level – states that unless the EU has exclusive competence, the EU shall act only if the “objectives of the proposed action” cannot be adequately attained at a national level |8|. This raises the question of how the EU justifies it is extensive intervention in the array of policy areas concerning the BSR.
(3) After the (2) Europe 2020 is
From Strategy to Action
the growth strategy of the European Union. The five targets for a sustainable development cover “employment; research and development; climate/energy; education; social inclusion and poverty reduction” and the objectives are supposed to be achieved by 2020 |19|.
As a result, the Union hopes to achieve an expansion of regional knowledge and more advantageous transport systems. The third pillar, the increase of prosperity, shall be achieved by supporting the implementation of Europe 2020 (2), improving the universal competitive performance of the BSR and especially by controlling and limiting risks of climate change |10|. Naturally, these three pillars overlap and complement each other. The Strategy should not appear as “merely a formal document”. Therefore, an Action Plan has been created, “ensuring clear and noticeable operations” that aim for the success of the EUSBSR |11|. The EUSBSR is a strategy where no new binding regulations have been adopted, no new funding has been assigned and no institution has been created in order to enforce or manage the Strategy. This can be attributed to the voluntarily participation of the member states and to the goal of interconnecting and utilizing existing policies, funds and organizations |12|. Nevertheless, effective application of the Strategy can be achieved through an essential concept which governs the relationship between the member states and the EU. The principle of loyal cooperation imposes the obligation on member states to: assist the EU in carrying out Treaty tasks, ensure the fulfilment of the obligations arising from EU law and refrain from any measure which could jeopardize the achievement of the EU’s objectives |8|.
ber states. The involvement of the EU institutions is supported and advised by a High Level Group of experts on the Strategy |2|. In addition, the leadership in major areas of the Strategy has been attributed to NGO’s, universities, research institutes and treaty commissions like the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM) also referred to as the Helsinki Commission |13| (3). The EU Commission releases regular reports that outline the ongoing implementation of the EUSBSR. Over the years, there have been several achievements that can be attributed to the Strategy. For instance, greater involvement of Russia concerning the protection of the environment, which shows the external dimension that the activities of the EU have |14|. The external cooperation has its basis in the northern dimension as the joint policy provides a networking between the EU, Russia, Iceland and Norway |2|.
rapprochement of the two Germanys in 1972, the call for a common framework on environmental protection in the Baltic Sea region could finally be heard. The Conference for the Human Environment, hosted by Finland, set the basis for the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area, also known as Helsinki Convention, which is ratified by seven states. The Convention included the establishment of a governing body, today known as the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) |3|.
To provide a successive organizational structure, the EU uses the approach of multi-level governance. This includes a high commitment at the sub-national level. For that reason, expert partners in specific regions and cities have been mobilized resulting in providing the leadership of many Flagship Projects on a local level. Moreover, the establishment of National Contact Points ensures the commitment of and the coherence between the eight mem-
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Under its main achievements in its report from 2011, the European Commission points out several new established projects such as the Baltic Deal. This cooperation between farmers led to the reduction of eutrophication. There are over 80 other projects, the so-called “Flagship Projects”, which demonstrate the ongoing process of the implementation and serve as leading examples that achieve implementing the set-out objectives |2|.
In February 2017, three new actions were adopted under the EUSBSR |16|. One of the three projects, “iWater–Improving urban planning by developing integrated and multifunctional storm water management in the Central Baltic cities,” is supposed to
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Notwithstanding the major achievements, there are a lot of improvements to be made. One major challenge of the EU that also affects the efficiency of the EUSBSR is the disunity of the members states regarding a common energy policy. Even though there were many attempts to create such a law, the states did not come to an agreement yet. The lack of an energy policy might overburden the scope of the EUSBSR |17|. As a result, the implementation could stagnate as the actors do not have the competences to establish the policy framework for the objectives. This task remains with the EU legislator. This approach only presents one example of the difficulties connected to the Strategy. As the BSR is an area which concerns numerous countries, it is not only necessary to create plans and define goals, but also to establish the necessary framework and structures. The need for sustainable development in the BSR should be discussed during relevant meetings and summits of the EU and its partners. Not withstanding the abovementioned involvement on the local level, one must concede that administrative structures need to be improved even further, requiring a full commitment on a sub-national level. Although the set-out objectives provide a guideline for policies, more specific and definite targets need to be drawn.
“The need for a sustainable development in the BSR should be more present during relevant meetings and summits of the EU and its partners.”
Nothing Works Without Energy
Furthermore, the networking amongst the states has increased on several levels. As a result, a new maritime community has been shaped. The Helsinki Commission reigns in numerous projects regarding the environmental protection. Therefore, HELCOM’s Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) is highly supported by the EU |2|. A newly released report by the Helsinki Committee proves that HELCOM’s efforts contribute to reaching the goals of the BSAP, especially in terms of reducing the pollution of the Baltic Sea through nutrients and other harmful substances |15|. Additionally, the development of effective policies within the EU that can be applied in practice has been improved. Specifically, the recommendations of projects analysing and developing new approaches with regards to fisheries management, labour market strategies or maritime surveillance systems contributed to the creation of coherent policies that suit the BSR. The last major achievement mentioned in the report is the arrangement of available funding. Several funds and loans, provided amongst others by the European Investment Bank and the European Fisheries Fund have made it possible to stimulate the costly implementation of the EUSBSR |2|.
improve storm water management. According to Björn Grönholm, the Head of Secretariat at Union of the Baltic Cities Sustainable Cities Commission (a project partner of iWater), local authorities in the BSR are increasingly confronted with controlling storm water run-off and its effects on ecosystems, water quality and general health. He is convinced that: “iWater project develops cost-effective, sustainable and holistic stormwater [sic] management solutions that supports the Sustainable Development Goals and creates higher quality and more resilient urban environments for […] citizens” |16|.
References
Conclusion
The BSAP serves as a good example in the area of water and marine environment. However, other areas lack qualitative norms in order to monitor the Strategy effectively. A greater orientation on Europe 2020 is one of the recommended future goals the EU aims to achieve |2|. This notion includes the creation of more specific and targeted aims that lead to coherent policies. Generally, implementation structures need to improve. Even though the Commission identified this issue in its report and included recommendations on how to strengthen the existing framework, it did not specify how to achieve this goal in the long-term |2|. The European Union has become a central figure in the area of sustainable development in the BSR. Not only did the Union contribute by adapting its environmental policy, it went beyond defining and attributing limits by following a multilevel approach which includes the involvement of multiple different actors. The distribution of tasks to local experts and organizations enables the implementation of the EUSBSR. Moreover, the EU serves as a platform for networking and also as an important observer. To recapitulate, the Union does not only define common goals based on the established problems, the Commission also evaluates the current achievements and shortcomings and makes recommendations that find their basis in these observations. This form of governance is necessary to reach a balance between people, planet and profit and it cannot be achieved on a national level. As a consequence, and despite all the remaining challenges, Europeanization is a significant step towards sustainable development in the Baltic Sea Region.
1. Our Baltic Sea.; State of the Baltic Sea - Holistic Assessment., accessed April 04, 2018, http://stateofthebalticsea.helcom.fi/in-brief/our- baltic-sea/. 2. European Commission. 2011.“Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council. The European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the Implementation of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR).” Brussels: European Commission. COM (2011) 381 final. The provided url gives another description: on the Implementation of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR), http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52011DC0381 3. Kern, Kristine and Löffelsend, Tina. 2004. ;Governance Beyond the Nation-State: Transnationalization and Europeanization of the Baltic Sea Region.; WZB Discussion Paper SP IV 2004-105: 1. https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/49591. 4. “About the Baltic Sea.; WWF Global. WWF - World Wide Fund for Nature, accessed May 20, 2017, http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/baltic/area/. 5. Mårtensson, Ida.; The Baltic Sea– a Unique Marine Region.; BalticSea2020, accessed May 20, 2017, http://balticsea2020.org/english/the-baltic- seas-challanges. 6. Gilek, Michael; Karlsson, Mikael; Linke, Sebastian and Smolarz, Katarzyna.. 2016. “Environmental Governance of the Baltic Sea.” MARE Publication Series. 1st ed. Vol. 10 Springer. 7. Chalmers, Damian and Barossso, Luis. 2014.;What Van Gend En Loos Stands For.; International Journal of Constitutional Law 12 (1): 108. doi:10.1093/icon/mou003. 8. European Union. Consolidated version of the Treaty on the European Union. 2012. OJ C 83/1330.3.2010. Article 4-5. 9. EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region.; South Baltic Programme., accessed 15 April, 2018, http://2007-2013.southbaltic.eu/index/?id=77f959f119f4fb2321e9ce801e2f5163. 10. Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth. 2014. A Beginner’s Guide to the Baltic Sea Region Strategy. Tillväxtverke. Stockholm: Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth. ISBN 978-91- 86987-98- 5 11. Glossary.; EUSBSR, accessed May 26, 2017, http://www.balticsea-regionstrategy.eu/communication/glossary. 12. “FAQs.” EUSBSR, accessed April 17, 2018, https://www.balticsea-regionstrategy.eu/communication/faqs. 13. European Commission. 2018. “Annex to the Action Plan for the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region.” The provided url gives further information: on completed and ongoing projects, https://www.balticsea-region- strategy.eu/action-plan?task=document.viewdoc;id=17. 14. EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region.; European Commission, last modified May 30, accessed May 30, 2017, http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/policy/cooperation/macro-regional-strategies/baltic-sea/. 15. Stankiewicz, Monika.;How is the Baltic Sea Region Doing in Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals?; HELCOM., last modified April 6, accessed May 30, 2017, http://www.helcom.fi/news/Pages/How-is- the-Baltic- Sea-Region- Doing-in- Implementing-the-Sustainable-Development- Goals0406-2202.aspx. 16. Szmidka, Paulina.;EUSBSR Flagship Status – what does it Mean for a Project?" EUSBSR., last modified April 6, accessed May 28, 2017, http://www.balticsea-region-strategy.eu/highlights/item/11-eusbsr- flagship-statuswhat-does- it-mean- for-a- project. 17. Bödewig, Kurt. “Rede zur EU-Ostsee- Strategie”, last modified September 2009, accessed June 7, 2017, http://www.kurt-bodewig.de/node/64. 18. Schütze, Robert. 2012. An Introduction to European Law. 1. publ. ed. Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge University Press. 111. 19. Europe 2020 in a Nutshell." European Commission., last modified August 18, accessed May 29, 2017, http://www.dynahealth.eu/public/images/news/Press_release_003_-_Publication_-_New_research_shows_unemployment_is_related_to_ type_2_diabetes_in_middleaged_men.pdf.
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Doctora! Aporto!
Unplanned adventures
“Asking for Wi-Fi isn’t the right question, the real question is ‘is there electricity?”
Going to Qatar was never something Mando planned to do. “I was finishing my PhD on international law at the University of Nottingham and I had just started looking for a job. A colleague told me that they are looking for someone in Qatar who could teach International law, ideally with an expertise in human rights law and preferably a woman”. She sent her CV, forgot about it for several months, and then “they invited me to an interview, and the end of the day I had to decide whether I was going or not, because they offered me the job”. For Deborah, it was equally unexpected. She was invited to join by Caitlin Ryan, a lecturer at the University of Groningen. Sierra Leone does not grace the covers of tourist brochures, so “At first I just let slip I might go to Sierra Leone”. The reactions were surprisingly calm. “I told my boyfriend and he was like ‘Oh that sounds cool’ and I think my parents said ‘Oh that’s interesting’. It took a few months before it sank it that I was actually going. They started wondering what kind of country it was, and my dad even asked if there was Wi-Fi” she says, laughing. Unlike Qatar, where Mando’s lifestyle “was much more modern, compared to Europe. You have all the comforts and most things you can imagine: someone would even carry your shopping bags or empty your ashtray”, Deborah’s surroundings were a little more spartan. “In most communities, there was no running water, except for the river. Asking for Wi-Fi isn’t the right question, the real question is ‘is there electricity?’ We were lucky, as our guest house had a generator running for 12 hours a day”.
Illustration Marina Sulima
Piotr G.S. Schulkes (Middle east studies)
This one is different. It is an interview with two people: Mando Rachovitsa, who taught international law and human rights law in Qatar, and Deborah Bakker, a research master student of International Relations, who spent five weeks in Sierra Leone on a research project (about land deals) funded by the Folke Bernadotte Academy. In the African country, “people just called us aporto like ‘white person’. It comes from ‘Portuguese’ as the first white people there came from Portugal”. Mando also got a nickname: “They are respectful towards professors there. The fact that a woman has a PhD is a very big deal, and once they realised they would like ‘aah, doctora!’ and be duly impressed”. What follows is an attempt to bring their experiences to life – the good, the bad, the funny and the ridiculous.
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Women in strange lands
Deborah’s situation was not much easier, having to deal with expectations about white people which had been formed long before she arrived. “Our research was about the gendered impact of large-scale land deals. They were however not very familiar with researchers, because whenever white people come to their communities they are either from an investment company or an NGO. Either way, they bring money, and they expected that from us too. We had to reiterate all the time we could not give them any money”. This required extra thoughtfulness. “Given these expectations, we wanted to make sure we would not exploit people for the benefit of our research”, before adding “but I do not want to overestimate my own emancipatory potential here”. With only five weeks in-country, the chance that she had a major impact is small, but Deborah’s European looks were apparently the stuff of legends. “I found out that, because I have blue eyes and blond hair, some people thought I looked like a water devil”. Even Mando, who stayed for much longer, found quantifying her impact difficult. “An impact is not necessarily changing people. Maybe it is just an illusion, but if you have a tiny impact on someone who will be influential in their country, in the region, or even globally, that tiny impact can be a huge change in the future”. The pictures Deborah made in Sierra Leone could easily come from an episode of Planet Earth. In one she is walking across a stream on a log, another shows a golden sunset with thatched huts and palm trees in the background. “It is a very beautiful country. The indigenous palm trees provide fruit, oil and firewood, so they are also very valuable.” The country might also be a future holiday destination for some, “the beaches are incredibly beautiful and Freetown is a vibrant city.
Cars & scooters
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Mando’s job opening stated that Qatar University preferred a woman. “I still wonder why they said that. It could be because they have so few women working there, especially at the Faculty of Law, or they wanted a role model for the female students”. After a bit more thought she finds another possibility, “How should I put it? I would have equal access to female and male students. They are also more careful about how they say what they say. I don’t think it is an accident that many countries have female ambassadors in Qatar”. Not being an ambassador, Mando was pretty unique. “Very few, if any, were in the same position as I was back then. I was something new, something a bit weird”. The novelty and weirdness did however come with a big responsibility. “I did not want to fall into the stereotype of a person coming from the West. You do not have the legitimacy to say that someone needs to change or do something, and they are very distrustful of international law – many feel that the international community has betrayed Palestine. I was there to communicate the fundamentals to them, to inspire some trust, to tell them to take ownership of international law. I functioned, inevitably, as a role model for the subject”.before adding “but I do not want to overestimate my own emancipatory potential here”. With only five weeks in-country, the chance that she had a major impact on their way of thinking is small, but Deborah’s European looks were apparently the stuff of legends. “I found out that, because I have blue eyes and blond hair, some people thought I looked like a water devil”. Even Mando, who stayed for much longer, found quantifying her impact difficult. “An impact is not necessarily changing people. Maybe it is just an illusion, but if you have a tiny impact on someone who will be influential in their country, in the region, or even globally, that tiny impact can be a huge change in the future”.
“In Sierra Leone people drive around the city on scooters, called an ocadas.” Unlike the drivers in Qatar, the Sierra Leoneans would actually know where to go. “There are ocada drivers on all the street corners, and for a bit of money and they can take you anywhere.” It is less stressful, too. “There was a university with very good Wifi in Port Loko, the city where we were most of the time. A guy from out guest house had an ocada and I would often ask him to take me to the university.Driving up and down with just the wind in your hair was wonderful. Everybody would shout ‘Aporto! Aporto!’ An aporto on an ocada is crazy to them. White people usually don’t go on ocadas”.
Neither Sierra Leone nor Qatar are found high on lists of foodie-destinations, but should Gordon Ramsay ever grow bored of living the high life in London, Mando is a strong proponent of the small Middle Eastern country. “I gained almost 10 kilos in Qatar. The food is amazing, and that is comingfrom a Greek person. They have Lebanese food, Syrian food, some Qatari dishes, it is fantastic”. Her favourite? “There was this fusion restaurant with Lebanese and Syrian food. They had some meat – beef, I think – with cherry sauce. It was brilliant”. When I noted that she did not sound like a vegetarian: “Me? No! You have a problem if you’re a vegetarian there. They will just assume you don’t eat beef, and think ‘oh you can eat fish, you can eat chicken’, they don’t get it”.
Don’t be a vegetarian
It is so chaotic and crazy that after a few days you want to escape.” Doha, the capital of Qatar, is maybe a little less appealing. “Everything is under construction, it is full of crazy drivers.” Crazy drivers with which the doctora shared the road. “After some disastrous attempts to use taxis, or even a driver – they would never be on time – I decided I had to drive my own car”. Only problem was, she did not have a driver’s license. “After half a year of this I was desperate. I went back to Greece, told them ‘I need a license now’ and I passed the exam! When I came back to Doha I rented a huge SUV, because I wanted to feel safe”. Unlike the car, though, Mando is not very big. “I had to really climb into the car, it was difficult”. Armed with a big car and a license nothing could stop her, except“there is this huge roundabout in Doha. In Greece we don’t have roundabouts, so I didn’t know how to drive around one. Getting back home, which should be a 15-minute drive, took two hours. I have never been so sweaty in my life”.
“Caitlin Ryan and I are both vegetarian” Deborah says when I ask her if any habits had to change while she stayed in Sierra Leone. “It’s not really a thing there, so we had to choose between chicken or fish. Not wanting to eat chicken, we had fish. Every day, sometimes twice a day, even three times. It was a challenge, as I was not really used to eating fish, and I haven’t touched it since I came home to the Netherlands”. Complaining about the food, though, would be unreasonable. “What we got was so much better than what most people there have”. The aversion to chicken did however make for a fun story. “We were in a village and the people wanted to give us some food. They weren’t sure what white people would prefer, so they went for the safe option and gave us a chicken”. The chicken was however a bit fresh. “It was still alive.
“Everybody would shout ‘Aporto! Aporto!’ ” 25
“I guess I was a category of my own in terms of sex, drugs and rock & roll.”
We obviously didn’t want to tell them we were vegetarian, but they wanted to chop its head off, but decided against it”. The rest of the day, Deborah had to do her research with her new companion. “I was doing an interview with a woman who had a toddler on her lap. The baby was pulling feathers from the chicken, the poor thing was screaming, it was very stressful”. After the interviews were done, the chicken’s adventure continued. “First were in a canoe with the live chicken, then an hour and a half in the car. The road was quite bumpy”, Deborah is illustrating its trajectory with her hands, “the chicken would fly like a metre in the air. After half an hour or so, it zoned out”. Afterwards, one of the translators brought their feathered friend home, fed it for a few weeks, and ate it.
Special outsiders
Mando’s office has many reminders of her time in Qatar. It has a small, brightly-coloured camel, several Qatari stamps and a big box with Arabic script on it. She walks over to it, and pulls it out of her cupboard. “It was a present from a former student of mine. She knew I liked Qatari coffee and this would allow me to continue drinking it”. Opening the box, she takes out a small bag. “Smell it”. Even through the plastic, one can recognize the aroma. “Cardamom. They put it everywhere, I miss it from my everyday life”.
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“During my time in Sierra Leone, it was impossible to observe thing as if I wasn’t there. As white people we always impacted the situation. We did however get to see and hear things that some local people would not experience – we were basically special outsiders”. I asked for an example. “They demonstrated their ritual for the first harvest of rice, they would use a chicken to gauge its quality. If the chicken turned its head away from the rice, it meant their ancestors did not approve”. While her time there was overwhelmingly positive, Deborah did have some reservations. “There is a very strong gendered division of labour. Decision-making power is concen-
trated among the male elders of the family. I mean, I see it as an ideal that men and women have the same rights, but this is not the case there and I should acknowledge that. That is not to say ‘that’s just how it is’, because I do not think so”. Based on the research, she feels that “women experience major negative consequences from the land deals. They lose access to firewood, so they have to walk much further to find any. It impacts them, but they don’t have ,any possibilities to influence the decision-making”. In the end, though, she is a researcher first and everything else second. “I wasn’t there to make a political statement”. Connecting with the women was also difficult. “I wasn’t considered to be part of ‘the women’. In the literature, this is described as ‘the third gender’ as you are kind of genderless. It does not matter if you are a man or a woman, because to women, you are not one of them. The women made our lunch and we ate with the men. In rank, we were closer to the males”. Deborah did not have a choice about who to eat with, but Mando did. “Me in the expat community? No way!” However, being a Qatari was out of the question as well , joking “I guess I was a category of my own in terms of sex, drugs and rock & roll”. Nevertheless, being a lecturer allows you a lot of contact with locals, and see things which the average foreigner will not see. “Qatari men kissing by touching their noses is the cutest thing ever”. She imitates the movement, which I compared to an Eskimo kiss. “Precisely like that, yes. I was surprised the first time I saw it, but after that, I loved it”. Women also had a typical Qatari greeting. “They would see each other, go ‘aaaah’ and do a slow motion ‘run’ – you cannot go fast because of the heat – towards each other, and kiss each other on the cheeks”. It sounds pretty simple, but no. “In most parts of the world, you know that you kiss someone once, twice, or three times. In Qatar, they kiss, ask how it is going, kiss again, and have a proper conversation. They would kiss five or six times and very quickly exchange their first news.
Making sense of it all
I started doing it myself, but I would always say ‘please, I need to know how many kisses’ so that I knew what to do, and they would just laugh at me. I didn’t know what to do, I needed a manual”. One girl, though, caused an even bigger headache. The alThani family is the ruling family of Qatar., and “One day, a girl from this family came into my office because she wanted a higher grade”. At first, it was pleasant. “She said ‘doctora, I would like a better grade”. Mando could not give her a higher grade. “She persisted. She said that she couldn’t sleep, that she was crying. I still refused, and then she tried another strategy and got really upset. At one point she asked ‘do you know who I am?’ I said ‘yes’, I knew who she was and I knew what she could do. If she wanted, she could have me deported no problem”. This went on for an hour, at which point the student said she would stay in Mando’s office until her grade was changed. “I was desperate. I said ‘fine, stay here’ and left to do some errands. 45 minutes later, she was still in the office. She was on her mobile phone, probably saying something about me on Twitter, who knows”. Eventually the girl left the office, without a higher grade, and later Mando and her developed a good friendship. “Later on, she came to one of my selective courses. I think she respected the fact that I stood by my principles”.
international law and the so-called ‘rest of the world”. In Sierra Leone “the things you see and find can make you question a lot about the world and about inequality. No-one here has experienced any of those things. Then you come home and have to make sense of it academically. You’re writing a paper and that’s your output. That’s it”. For Deborah, it is not a satisfying feeling. “You burst into peoples’ lives, make notes for a day, but who am I talking to? I’m talking to the literature. I am doing nothing at all”. She smiles, but the frustration is evident. “There might be some research output. Great. Some people might read it. Great. I’m not going to be demotivated though, I’m much more emotionally invested in this paper”. Mando agrees: “It is the only way to understand the contrast. Reading National Geographic, seeing pictures of poor kids, of skinny kids. We are used to those pictures, their impact is limited. The only way to experience a culture is to do so on a personal basis”. Deborah still wants to work in academia, but “I also feel like an activist. I think it is too easy to only talk within academia. I feel a pressure to make sense of this paper, I wish it would have more impact, because it’s real life”.
“When I came back to the Netherlands, there was a small culture shock. It is one of the most liberal countries in the world.” Even interacting with people was different. “Things like eye contact in the supermarket, having everyday contact with people – I didn’t have that in Qatar. The normal things were seriously overwhelming”. Unsurprisingly, after three and a half years your way of thinking changes too. “I changed the way I frame discussions, close friends noticed it. Ironically, I came back from Qatar quite radicalised. I became much more critical in the way I think about
“The only way to experience a culture is to do so on a personal basis”
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Mother Nurture Ecological Feminism: An unlikely convergence Nature is a Feminist Issue
Umme Aiemun Yousuf ( Political Philosophy & Anthropology)
“Mother Nature’ is raped, mastered, conquered, mined; her secrets are ‘penetrated,’ her ‘womb’ is to be put into the service of the ‘man of science.’ Virgin timber is felled, cut down; fertile soil is tilled, and land that lies ‘fallow’ is ‘barren,’ useless. The exploitation of nature and animals is justified by feminizing them; the exploitation of women is justified by naturalizing them.” – Karen J.Warren. |1| Illustration Veronika Radenkova
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The identification of women with the earth is a provocative yet conventional cornerstone incontemporary society, making an innate, essentialist allusion between the oppression of women and dominion over nature. French critic Françoise d’Eaubonne lay claim to the term “ecological feminisme” in 1974 to draw attention to women’s power to generate an ecological revolution. However, a more apt definition of “eco-feminist philosophy” is a tradition that critically analyses patriarchal Western canonical theories about women and nature, and more recently, serves as a tool that aids in exploring the relationship between reactionary climate change policy and legislation regarding women’s empowerment and rights |2|. Hence, reiterating that “nature is a feminist issue” purely because a coherent interpretation of environmental degradation requires a sound understanding of the systemic marginalization of women. The exploration and critical analysis of the tension between two distinct sets of demands: that we explicate human universals, and explain social particulars; is the core ingenuity in the discipline of anthropology. In line with this canon, women and the environment offer us with two of the more taxing issues to be tabled. The secondary status of woman in society and undeniable environmental damage are two of the bona fide universal, pan-cultural evidences.
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“Women are labelled to pejoratively as bitches, catty, pussies, pets, dumb bunnies, cows, sows, foxes, chicks, ...”
“...beavers, old bats, old hens, old crows, queen bees, vixen, serpents, bird-brains, hare-brains, elephants, and whales.”
The language one makes use of mirrors and echoes one’s outlook on the world—one’s theoretical skeleton. As per ecofeminist philosophers, rhetoric plays a strategic part in the justification of such denominations as the rhetoric used for social dialogue or political debate animalizes and naturalizes women in cultural backgrounds where they are already regarded as second-rate to men and male-identified culture |4|. Sexist speech continues to permeate our daily dialogue, often instinctively, often instinctively. Awareness of the problem is the first, crucial step. Although fine-tuning language patterns may seem inconsequential, but like so many small acts of resistance, it can lead to insightful change. “Women are labelled to pejoratively as bitches, catty, pussies, pets, dumb bunnies, cows, sows, foxes, chicks, beavers, old bats, old hens, old crows, queen bees, vixen, serpents, bird-brains, hare-brains, elephants, and whales.” Women cackle, go to hen parties, henpeck their husbands, become old biddies |old hens are not sexually attractive or able to reproduce|, and crave to be social butterflies |1|.
Dialects of Identity
Yet within this universal fact, the explicit cultural conceptions and symbolizations of the environment and women are extraordinarily diverse and even mutually contradictory. In addition to that, it would be both ignorant and insensitive to paint all women and environmental policy makers with the same brush as this contribution diverges largely from culture to culture, and over different epochs in history |3|. In lieu, these two dimensional decisive factors – the universal and the cultural, represent problems that need further research and explanation. Hence, the five faces of oppression: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, culture of silence and conscientization can be used to draw conclusions about the inexplicable link between environmental attitudes and the empowerment of women along the conceptual frameworks of linguistic, historical, socioeconomic, political and religio-ethical perspectives.
This blatant animalization and enforcement of the idea that it is both logical and customary to exploit females and the eco-system plays into the legitimating of undesirable acts, like the unethical placement of women in a substandard grade to men. Therefore, linguistic expressions that feminize nature and naturalize women illustrate, reproduce, and enable unwarranted patriarchal dominance by failing to grasp the degree to which the control of the environment is ethnically and metaphorically analogous and legitimate |5|.
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Historical Crimes-Generational Victims 32
Historical assessment on the foundation of the inexcusable subjugation of women and nature are contradictory and questionable. One of the first and widely referenced is ecofeminist historian Carolyn Merchant’s perspective. Merchant posits that the separation of culture from nature is due to the scientific revolution. She depicts two distinguished images of nature: a more primitive, Greek representation of nature as raw, munificent, nurturing and empathetic female, and a progressive, “modern” (1500– 1800s) image of nature as static, obsolete, and mechanistic. Merchant argues that this paradigm shift in historical thought from an organic to a mechanized model aided in rationalizing and even defending the ill-use of the earth and its resources by conceiving of it as inert matter. For instance, mining was outlawed in antiquity as it was considered “mining the earth’s womb”; early Greek metaphors of nature as vivacious and “nurturing mother” sustained the view that mining wasimmoral or sinful. For many eco-feminist philosophers, Merchant’s historical perspective informs their analyses of the deep conceptual roots of the baseless dominance of women and nature. Feminist scholars such as Riane Eisler have discovered that the matrilineal disposition of the social order before 4500 BCE was fairly at peace with nature |6|. This came to an end with the foray on Indo-European societies by Eurasian nomadic tribes. Other scholars have located these historical associations going back to Greek philosophy and the rationalist traditions. More contemporary analyses of history focus on the scientific revolutions of the 16th and 17th centuries. They contend that this ushered in an era of reductionist and mechanistic science which led to unimpeded industrial growth and the subordination of women. Carolyn Merchant writes: “As Western culture became increasingly mechanized during the 1600s, a female nurturing earth and virgin earth spirit were subdued by the machine. The
change in controlling imagery was directly related to changes in human attitudes and behavior towards the earth. Whereas the older nurturing earth image can be viewed as a cultural constraint restricting the types of socially and morally sanctioned human actions allowable with respect to the earth, the new images of mastery and domination functioned as cultural sanctions for the denudation of nature.” In contention to the fact that there was a fundamental swing in political thought during this time period which evolved society and its functioning from more organic assumptions of the earth to a view of nature as a mechanical framework, Merchant has often compared the violence done to the land and the violence done to women and argued that women were fighting against exploitative developments using their intrinsic bond with nature.
1. Warren, K.J., 1987. “Feminism and Ecology: Making Connections”, Environmental Ethics, 9: 3–21. 2. d’Eaubonne, F., 1974. Le Feminisme ou La Mort, Paris: Pierre Horay. 3. Shlasko, Davey. 2015.;Using The Five Faces Of Oppression To Teach About Interlocking Systems Of Oppression;. Equity; Excellence In Education 48 (3): 349-360. 4. Warburton, J. A Little History of Philosophy. Yale University Press, 2011. 5. Adams, Carol J.;Ecofeminism and the Eating of Animals.; Hypatia 6, no. 1 (1991): 125-45. 6. Sturgeon, Noël, Donald Worster, and Vera Norwood. Environmental History 10, no. 4 (2005): 805-15. 7. Vakoch, D. (ed.), 2011, Ecofeminism and Rhetoric: Critical Perspectives on Sex, Technology and Discourse, New York: Berghahn Publishers. 8. Shiva, V., 1988, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, London: Zed Books.
Refferences
Socio-Economic Factors According to Marxist-informed “materialist ecofeminism”, socioeconomic conditions too are predominant in the interconnected dominations of women and nature. It can be deduced that while both men and women mediate between culture and nature, they do not do so equally. Since the patriarchal capitalist society is centred on the notion of productive efficiency, raw materials, land, and energy resources; the factories, machinery, technology, and accumulated skills of the workers become essential to the debate as to why we subjugate the female voice and exploit the earth. This may be due to the fact that a system of predominantly male ownership of the means and forces of production results in a male-biased allocation and distribution of a society’s economic resources that systematically disadvantages women economically and exploits nature |7|.
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KAZUO ISHIGURO’S THE BURIED A DIALECTICAL FUSION OF MEMORY, REMEMBRANCE, AND FORGETTING
In 2017, the English novelist Kazuo Ishiguro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the literary world’s highest honour. The following sentence is attached to Ishiguro’s name on the Nobel Prize’s official website: “who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world” |11|. In light of his astonishing contribution to the literary sphere, this book review reflects on Ishiguro’s latest novel The Buried Giant, focusing, in particular, on the themes of memory, remembrance, and forgetting. The triad of these themes goes hand in hand with Ishiguro’s ability to portray “our illusory sense of connection with the world”.
Born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954, Ishiguro moved to Surrey, England, as a young boy at the age of five. He did not return to visit Japan until 1989, nearly 30 years later. In England, Ishiguro discovered literature and developed a profound adoration of music. Although failing to pursue his youthful ambition of becoming a prominent singer and songwriter, combining a child-like enthusiasm for music and song-writing with a love of literature allowed Ishiguro to develop an “idiosyncratic, elliptical prose style” which makes him one of the most inspiring British authors of his generation |1|. Ishiguro’s works The Remains of the Day (1989), a story about unspoken love set in post-war Britain, and Never Let Me Go (2005), a dystopian novel which challenges our perception of the universe and time, are regular inhabitants of the bookstore around the corner. Readers around the globe identify these novels as classics of contemporary British literature, and their characters, such as the memorable Mr. Stevens and Lord Darlington, creep with remarkable ease into the reader’s heart. Ishiguro’s other notable works include An Artist of the Floating World (1986), When We Were Orphans (2000), and Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall (2009).
Illustration Marina Sulima
KAZUO ISHIGURO: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION
Dora Vrhoci ( European Languages and Cultures )
GIANT:
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THE BURIED GIANT: A PECULIAR PIECE OF FANTASY
Throughout his corpus, Ishiguro obsessively returns to the same themes. The New York Times’ Alexandra Alter and Dan Bilefsky identify these as “the fallibility of memory, morality, and the porous nature of time” |1|. It is precisely within the constellation of these themes that Ishiguro’s seventh and latest novel, The Buried Giant (2015), an often neglected jewel in Ishiguro’s career, can be situated.
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Ever since its publication in 2015, The Buried Giant has been a continuous target of prestigious fantasy and literary award committees. In 2016, the novel was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for best novel and the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature. It was also placed sixth in the 2016 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. Set in post-Arthurian Britain, The Buried Giant tells the story of an elderly couple, Axl and Beatrice, who suddenly decide to visit their long-lost son in a nearby village. The novel consists of scenes which follow the married couple as it travels from village to village in medieval England devastated by a war between Saxons and Britons. On its journey, the couple is joined by Wistan, a Saxon warrior, Edwin, a boy stolen by ogres and bitten by a monster, and Sir Gawain, the dead King Arthur’s nephew. As they travel, the group is disturbed by the unexpected appearance of one or more slimy ogres, the perplexing presence of a mysterious boatman, and sword-fighting monks. In an instant, from what initially seems as a dull journey of an elderly couple, the novel turns into an adventure reminiscent of J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic high fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings and George R. R. Martin’s fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.
However, while The Buried Giant contains elements which may easily conjure memories of the Middle Earth in the mind of a Tolkien enthusiast, Ishiguro’s peculiar piece is far from a fast-paced fantasy of a ‘Tolkienian’ kind. In fact, it is a rather melancholy book, and, as Neil Gaiman writes for The New York Times, despite its ogres, dragons, and sword-fighting monks, the novel’s narrative tone is “dreamlike”, while scenes of fantasy and action are told “distantly”–“without the book’s pulse ever beating faster” |4|. Instead of a dynamic focus on fantasy and action, at the heart of the novel is a powerful interplay between memory, remembrance, and forgetting, reflected in the motif of a mist which robs the characters of their memories.
“Ishiguro’s
The Buried Giant is not
a fantasy of a ‘Tolkienian’ kind.”
UNITED BY THE MIST: THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CONSTRUCTING A COMMON NARRATIVE OF THE PAST
The themes of memory, remembrance, and forgetting, reflected in the motif of the memory-erasing mist, are an overarching element in the novel. The mist, by fragmentising the character’s memories, effectively deprives them of their past. As a result, the characters seem as though they are floating in a homeostatic realm without a discernable history, and without a future which can be built upon a stable memory. Axl describes the fleeting nature of the characters’ memories in the following way: “Some days I remember him [his son] clear enough. The next day it’s as if a veil’s fallen over his memory” |7|.
The possibility of interpreting the characters’ past in multiple ways produces alternative narrative tracks, or alternative histories, within the story world. Each of these tracks/histories contains a substantially different version of the characters’ past. Within this framework, the novel can be seen as constructed by multiple potential history lines (vs. a unifying history shared by all the characters in the story world). This way, The Buried Giant becomes a collection of potentialities and possible cosmoi, highlighting the illusionary nature of our connectedness with the world based on a unifying narrative of the past.
The memory-erasing mist has its philosophical charm: it allows us to interpret the novel with a focus on the idea of collective memories. To put into perspective, Ishiguro’s characters, although belonging to the same community in the story world, are fundamentally disconnected through the fragmentary nature of their memories. In other words, without mutually shared, collective memories, the characters are unable to construct a coherent narrative of a common past.
Paradoxically, this shared impossibility to create a common narrative of their past interconnects the characters by infusing them with a collective unconsciousness. According to Carl Jung, a collective unconsciousness consists of “the entirety of human history” which manifests itself in the form of “myths, symbols, and rituals” |3|. Seen from this prism, the collective memory of losing their memories embodied in the myth of the memory-erasing mist can also serve as a link, however feeble, between the characters.
The multiplicity and dissonance of the characters’ narratives of the past comes to the fore in relation to their attempts to explain the origins of the mist. While Axl and Beatrice are convinced that Querig, a “she-dragon”, has created the mist in order to bewitch the inhabitants of their village, Ivor, a Saxon elder, interprets the mist as a consequence of divine forgetfulness: “It might be God himself had forgotten much from our pasts, events far distant, events of the same day. And if a thing is not in God’s mind, then what chance of it remaining in those of mortal men?” |7|.
“This lack of a coherent history between the characters, which could otherwise serve as a connective tissue between them, ...”
“... turns Ishiguro’s novel into a cacophony of voices which confront the reader with multiple interpretations of the past.” 37
FROM POST-ARTHURIAN BRITAIN TO ‘POST-HITLERIAN’ EUROPE 38
If we step outside the medieval space of post-Arthurian Britain, the dialectic of memory, remembrance, and forgetting, which streams through the pages of The Buried Giant, is reminiscent of a similar phenomenon found in the history of twentieth-century Europe. In the epilogue of his remarkable piece, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, Tony Judt reflects on the importance of collective memories for the formation of national and supra-national European identities. In the aftermath of the Second World War, having witnessed “an attempt by one group of Europeans to exterminate every member of another group of Europeans”, the nations of Europe developed a complex relationship with their war-time past |8|. With the awareness of the Holocaust infused in the European air in the second half of the twentieth century, the European nations were faced with a challenge: they could either forcefully delete the memory of the Holocaust from their collective unconsciousness, or retain it, and use as a building block in constructing a common narrative of the past. As Judt writes: “What the French historian Henry Rousso would later dub the ‘Vichy syndrome’–the decades-long difficulty of acknowledging what had really happened during the war and the overwhelming desire to block the memory or otherwise recast it in a usable way that would not corrode the fragile bonds of post-war society–was by no means unique to France” |8|.
The “Vichy syndrome”, indeed, engulfed the European community as a whole. The difficulty of acknowledging what happened during the war, as well as the subsequent attempt to block or recast the memory of the Holocaust, prompted European states to construct idealised narratives, or myths, of their war-time past. Examples of these ‘myths’ include Germany’s narrative of “Hitler did it”, the image of Austria as “the first victim”, and the conceptualisation of Switzerland as “the refuge”. This phenomenon of a collective amnesia (the “Vichy syndrome”), embodied in the silence which tied together a whole generation of Europeans, bears remarkable resemblance to the motif of the memory-erasing mist in Ishiguro’s novel. Post-war Europe, as Judt discusses, was built upon “deliberate mis-memory” and forgetting became “a way of life” |8|, emphasis in the original|. Similarly, forgetting is a way of life for Axl and Beatrice and the history of the story world in which Ishiguro’s characters dwell is built upon the myth of the memory-erasing mist.
“This way,
The Buried Giant becomes a collection of potentialities and possible cosmoi,...”
(1)Hypnopaedia, or sleep-learning, refers to “learning by hearing while asleep or under hypnosis” |6|.
MEMORY, ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES, AND THE DYSTOPIAN NOVEL
Kazuo Ishiguro’s peculiar piece of fantasy is a profoundly complex novel. At first, The Buried Giant may strike the reader as a fast-pace Arthurian adventure reminiscent, with its ogres, dragons, and sword-fighting monks, of J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic high fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings and George R. R. Martin’s fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. Ishiguro’s novel, however, is far from a traditional fantasy piece. It is a novel of remarkable philosophical depth which converts the themes of collective memory, collective unconscious, and alternative histories, into a unique story of an elderly couple on a quest to find their long-lost son. To be fair, while Ishiguro’s novel incorporates elements of fantasy, as well as touches upon intriguing philosophical debates, its melancholic tune, and an almost lethargic narrative pace, make it a novel which is difficult to love. Its philosophical charm aside, Ishiguro’s protagonists–Axl and Beatrice– may not appeal to younger generations of readers who might find it challenging to identify with the concerns of the elderly couple, while the narrative distance with which the events are recounted may hinder them to fully immerse themselves into the story. Nonetheless, despite the possible disadvantages posed by the novel’s melancholic narrative tone, The Buried Giant remains highly relevant for contemporary readers. Its themes of memory, remembrance, and forgetting, echo the intellectual debates which painted the political and societal landscape of twentieth-century European history, and position the novel alongside classics of dystopian literature. In short, while The Buried Giant may not capture the heart of every reader out there, it is definitely worth digesting. Its characters and scenes may rapidly vanish from the reader’s mind, in a pace similar to the one with which the mythical mist steals Axl and Beatrice’s past, but its themes of memory, remembrance, and forgetting, will not so easily let it go.
“...highlighting the illusionary nature of our connectedness with the world based on a unifying narrative of the past.”
CONCLUSION: A DIFFICULT NOVEL TO LOVE
On a different dimension, Ishiguro’s incorporation of the themes of collective memory,collective unconsciousness, and alternative histories, into the underlying philosophical matrix of The Buried Giant, positions the novel shoulder-to-shoulder with twentieth-century dystopian classics, such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), George Orwell’s 1984 (1949), and Margret Attwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). (To be sure, the parallel between the themes problematised in The Buried Giant and those identified in the three dystopian novels observed in this section does not imply that The Buried Giant belongs to the dystopian genre itself.) Huxley’s characters are thought to repeat the hypnopaedic (1) phrase “history is bunk”, and “a campaign against the Past” has allowed the inhabitants of The World State to rewrite history as they please |5|. In a similar fashion, “history is continuously rewritten” in Orwell’s 1984: “newspapers and history books were, of course, always coloured and biased” and the totalitarian regime can effectively “arrest progress and freeze history at a chosen moment” |10|. Finally, the idea of writing, re-writing, and falsifying history, is present in Atwood’s reproductive dystopia, in which the author creates an alternative history of the United States, prompted by an environmental disaster |2|.
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References 40
1. Alter, Alexandra, and Dan Bilefsky. “Kazuo Ishiguro Is Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/books/nobelprize-literature.html. Accessed 13 April 2018. 2. Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Anchor Books, 1998. 3. Buchanan, Ian. “collective unconsciousness.” A Dictionary of Critical Theory. Oxford University Press, 2010. 4. Gaiman, Neil. “Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘The Buried Giant’.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/books/review/kazuo-ishiguros-the-buriedgiant.html. Accessed 14 April 2018. 5. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. 6. “hypnopaedia.” English. Oxford Living Dictionaries. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hypnopaedia. Accessed 10 April 018. 7. Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Buried Giant, London: Faber; Faber, 2015. 8. Judt, Tony. Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945. New York: Penguin Press. 9. Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University of Minnesota Press, 1984. 10. Orwell, George. 1984. Penguin Books, 2008. 11. “The Nobel Prize in Literature 2017.” Nobelprize.org. https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2017/. Accessed 29 April 2018.
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In the world of science, there is no end to learning and discovering. New technologies are being developed every day, making things once perceived as impossible into reality, shattering the barrier on what is possible. As Albert Einstein once said, “once we accept our limits, we go beyond them” a statement proven to be true by revolutionary scientific breakthroughs. Starting from the ground-breaking genome editing technique CRISPR-Cas, the funding of ice in Mars, up to the self-discovery car from Tesla. The continuous progress of science opens the door for various lines of research field, both in fundamental and applied science. In many cases, fundamental research is eventually adopted into applications that can fulfil public demands.
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Nanotechnology is a field that has been gaining popularity and attracting researcher’s attention over the past two decades |1|. First conceived by American physicist, Richard Feynman, in 1959, the term ‘nanotechnology’ was contrived by Norio Taniguchi in 1974 |2|. The field has been growing exponentially since then. Nanotechnology itself entails manipulation of matter on the scale of 1-100 nanometers |3|. The applications of this field range from medical, electronics, and biomaterials, including in consumer products segment |4|. One of the commercial applications of nanotechnology or more specifically nanoparticles is in cosmeceutical products |5|.
Cosmetics are products that alter physical appearance for beauty. Through the help of cosmeceuticals, these products have become more than just products for outer beauty by means of covering up imperfections but as a drug for treatments of skin, hair and body |6|. The cosmetic industry is one of the significant economic players with a global market, having several sectors including make-up, skin care and lotions, hair product, fragrances and perfumes and premium beauty product |7, 8|. In the United States, the market for cosmetic product is exploding, being the highest in the world |7|. The market for cosmetic is predicted to continue to grow and will reach $429 billion market in 2022 |9|. This large market indicates a large number of consumers for cosmetic products. Nanotechnology is a very attractive field for the cosmetic industry because it opens a door to unlimited opportunities. Using the particles at the Nano level allows enhancement of several properties of the product such as UV protection and long lasting effect |5|. Nearly all big cosmetic companies are utilizing nanoparticles to advance their products’ functions, among them are L’Oréal, The Body Shop, Clinique, Clarins, Yves Saint Laurent, Dior and Estee Lauder |10|. Numerous leading cosmeceutical companies owned nanoparticles patents . L’Oréal, the largest cosmeceutical company in the world, allocate a noteworthy investment of $600 million dollars for purchasing patents in the nano field; in addition to patenting ‘nanosome’ particles of their own |5|.
Illustration Antonia Oana
Upgraded Cosmetics
Jennifer Hong (Chemical Engineering)
Nanocosmeceuticals: Exploring the Price of Beauty
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The Advantages of Nanoparticles in Cosmetics
Nanomaterials have made some drugs dermally applicable, which was not previously possible |6|. Despite the widespread use, contradicting opinions have arisen regarding nanoparticles. The effect and application of nanoparticles has been a subject of dispute that extends from science to society mainly due to the uncertainty of the risks |11|. Despite the advantage, some are concerned with the health and environmental risks the particles impinge. Studies have indicated the negative impact on health and ecosystem from exposure to nanoparticles |5|. Putting nanoparticles in cosmetic products could possibly endanger the consumers, workers and environment |5|. The conflicting reports regarding the effects of nanoparticles open up a series of questions on the ethical and health issues of applying them in cosmetics.
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As mentioned above, nowadays nanoparticles are largely used in the cosmetic industry as a result of the magnified performance it contributes to the overall product |5|. There are various types of nanomaterials used in cosmetic product, with different size, ranging from 10 nm up to 1000 nm |5|. Some of these nanoparticles are, nanoemulsion, liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN), Nanocrystals, nano-gold, nano-silver, buckyballs and mineral based ingredients in nano-size, for instance titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. |5|. These materials affect the cosmetic product performance to a different degree. One example is nano-silver, which has antibacterial properties that would be advantageous in face cream nonetheless improvements are made on the functions of the cosmetic goods |6|. One of the advantage of using nanoparticle is it decrease ultra violet (UV) penetration on the skin |12|. Two parts of the UV that can radiate through the atmosphere and cause biological harm are UVA (320-400
nm) and UVB (290-320 nm) |13|. Overexposure to UV radiation can inflict a mild damage, such as erythema,or more severe damage, including various degenerative skin |13|. Sunscreens are used to protect the skin against these effects from both UVA and UVB with UV reflective materials as a common composition to protect against these lights |13|. However, nanoparticles are increasingly used, as they are able to deflect UV radiations more efficaciously compared to other UV reflective material as a result of their high surface area to volume ratio |12|. A few nanoparticles that have the ability to block UV are solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) and mineral based nanomaterials |13|. Solid lipid nanoparticles that is mostly crystalline can effectively scatter incoming UV light |12|. In addition, when embedded with molecular sunscreen, it can significantly absorb UV, even exceeding the theoretical value calculated |12|. This funding shows that lower concentration of molecular sunscreen is needed to achieve the desired result |12|. Another nanoparticle that is effective for UV protection is titanium dioxide combined with microsize zinc oxide |13|. In terms of micro-sized, titanium dioxide has better absorption of UVB; complimented by zinc oxide that absorbs UVA, providing the range needed for blocking against UV band |13|. On the other hand, pairing of their nanosized counterparts decrease UVA absorption |13|. In response to this problem, a possible resolution is to incorporate nanosized titanium dioxide with microsized zincoxide |13|. This combination yield intensified UVB absorption by titanium dioxide while retaining UVA absorption of zinc oxide |13|.
“…can the environment endure the extra dosage of nanoparticles? What is the limit before it desecrates the ecosystem?”
Despite the great promise nanoparticles offer to the world of cosmetics, there are some risks that requires consideration. As a component of a product that will be used directly on the body, the safety of these particles for health is a major concern.Studies have indicated the undesired effect on health due to nanoparticles, especially in metal oxides such as titanium dioxide and zinc oxide |5|. Their toxicological impact a result of their properties that include smaller size, chemical composition, surface structure, solubility, shape and aggregation |5|.One key attribute of nanoparticles is their somewhat smaller size. Despite providing an enhanced ability to be absorbed and have cellular interaction, the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the body by nanoparticles is alarming |19|. Despite to their small size, the nanoparticles can easily enter into the blood stream through penetration of the skin or inhalation, and then travel to vital organs, followed by the formation of the ROS |5|. Consequently, these radicals lead to oxidative stress, inflammation; protein, membrane and DNA damages, and ultimately, apoptosis |20|. For example, a low dosage of Nano size titanium dioxide can expunge DNA and stimulate inflammation |5|. The change in the surface area also raises some concerns. With the decrease in the particle’s size, the surface area is in turn increased. This directly corresponds to its reactivity. With the increase of surface-area-to-mass ratio, chemical reaction is more likely to occur or in other words, nanoparticle becomes more reactive |5|. The strengthened reactivity also makes them more toxic than those of their larger counterpart. Compared to a higher dosage of BaSO4 , titanium dioxide can cause a far more critical lung inflammation |21|.
The Advantages of Nanoparticles in Cosmetics
The second positive function of nanoparticles in cosmetic is for drug delivery. Nanoparticles used as media to transfer molecular ingredients, are known as nanocarriers |14|. Their beneficial properties include elevation in surface area, solubility and stability, controllable discharge of components, higher drug capacity and increase transport of materials into skin |15|. This renders nanocarriers favorable for skin, nail and hair care, or in other words, cosmetic dermatology. Solid lipid nanoparticles, along with nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) are nanoparticles assembled for this objective |16|.A study done shows SLNs are able to deliver the compound resveratrol across the cell membrane with superior transport, solubility, and stability compared to resveratrol solution |15|. Nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) are, likewise, strong contenders for nanocarriers. Reports show that NLCs are capable of delivering tocopherol, an exceptionally active antioxidant imperative to prevent oxidative stress in skin,with higher release rate than nanoemulsions |15|. NLC’s improved skin hydration, bioavailability, physical stability and controlled blockage secure its place as a prospective nanocarries |17|. Besides SLN and NLC, numerous other nanoparticles have been utilized as vesicle to deliver active ingredients, for instance nano-emulsions, liposome, and nanocrystals |5, 6, 18|. As a result of its advantages, nanotechnology has been applied in cosmetic widely consumed by the mass public, with products comprising of moisturizer, sunscreens, hair care, anti-aging product, skin cleanser, lip care and nail care |6|. For instance, Lancôme has applied nanotechnology for encapsulating nutrients in nanoparticles to boost their moisturizing anti-wrinkle cream |6|.However, studies done on nanoparticles indicate potential health and environmental risk from these particles.
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ic system may be in peril. The word data obtained shed some lights on the impact to the environment caused by a few types of nanoparticles commonly used in cosmetics, namely, carbon nanotubes, nano-titanium dioxide, nano-silver |25|. Studies of nanotitanium dioxide expose it toxicology toward the environment. Microorganisms, mostly found in aquatic system, are vulnerable toward nanoparticles |25|. A model study of titanium dioxide on microorganism reveals that a small amount of this molecule is capable of impairing microorganism’s cell membrane |25|. The potential damage does not end there, studied done by University of Toledo indicates bacteria’s ability in microbial degradation and water purification of water and sewage treatment, diminish after exposure to Nano-titanium dioxide, contained in the cosmetic goods, for under an hour |5|. Nanosilver is particularly dangerous when mixed with water. These silver compounds are exceptionally poisonous towards microscopic creatures, inclusive of bacteria, fungi, and Protista |27|. Moreover, nanosilver, even at low concentration, is dangerous for fish, shrimps and other marine species |28|. At a commercial level, applying nanotechnology in cosmetic product is beneficial for the company. It grants a crucial improvement in the product that allows it to compete with other companies. Additionally, the nanocosmetic product can ostensibly satisfy the customers’ demand by providing better function. On the other hand, it can clearly be observed from current data that negative effect of nanoparticles affect numerous groups; among them are consumers, workers, researchers and the environment. Additionally, in recent development of society, ecosystem has been included as part of moral community in the expanding circle |29|. With the multitude of moral circle in jeopardy, it raises the exigent question on whether it is ethical to utilize nanoparticles to refine cosmetic products.
Ethical or not ethical
A characteristic that also contributes to the toxicity is the chemical composition and behavior |22|. If these particles make their way into a cellular level, interaction with proteins can inflict cytoxicity |23|. Nanoscale SiO2 can induce the release of IL8, a pro-inflammatory cytokine, making it a driving force for inflammation. Furthermore, this Nano-size silica evokes an influx of cellular Ca2+ level, which in turn, generates extra ROS |24|. The health damage from nanoparticles requires more studies and should be carefully considered before commercializing product with unwanted side effects as it affect a various group of people. Consumers of the product are not the only ones imperil from the toxicity of nanoparticles. If the workers are not properly equipped during manufacturing of the particles and end products in the factory, incidental exposure is very probable |5|. Additionally, researchers working in product research and development are also bound to have contact with these materials |5|. The impact of nanoparticles in cosmetic is not limited to humans, but extends to the environment. While nanoparticles are naturally found in the environment and acceptable at a reasonable amount, the rise of Nano cosmetic industry yields higher production of nanoparticles and related products is inevitable and in turn, more chemicals containing these materials are disposed into the environment |25|. Additionally, cosmetics products containing nanoparticles will be removed during face wash or shower. The water used to rinse off the product will consist leftover nanoparticles, adding to the amount disposed into the environment though sewage system |26|. This begs the question of can the environment endure the extra dosage of nanoparticles? What is the limit before it desecrates the ecosystem? Currently, the amount of studies focusing on the ecological impact of nanoparticles is insufficient to give a clear picture but if the current data is any indication, then the abiotic and biot-
At a commercial level, applying nanotechnology in cosmetic product is beneficial for the company. It grants a crucial improvement in the product that allows it to compete with other companies. Additionally, the nanocosmetic product can ostensibly satisfy the customers’ demand by providing better function. On the other hand, it can clearly be observed from current data that negative effect of nanoparticles affect numerous groups; among them are consumers, workers, researchers and the environment. Additionally, in recent development of society, ecosystem has been included as part of moral community in the expanding circle |29|. With the multitude of moral circle in jeopardy, it raises the exigent question on whether it is ethical to utilize nanoparticles to refine cosmetic products. Do the benefits really outweigh the risks? The long-term health risk that nanoparticles present raises the question on whether it is ethically right to utilize them as a component in cosmetic products. The danger of exposure does not only threaten the consumers but also the workers in the factory involved in manufacturing these particles and the end products |5|. Applying nanotechnology in the cosmetic industry can potentially inflict irreversible medical conditions to both consumers and workers. Looking from a consequentialist perspective gives a definite verdict. Based on consequentialist theory, an act is considered ethically correct if the action is led to the happiness of the highest number of people |29|.
“Once the gap in the knowledge is filled, a clear verdict can be made but for now the many uncertainties...”
As cosmetic product are common goods that are used daily and broadly insociety, a great number of people are at risk of future medical problems. Constant and daily exposure to the materials inadvertently increases the concentration of nanoparticles inside the body and in the long term, which influence customer’s health |5|. With consideration of the environment as a part of the moral community, the ethnicality of the action with respect to the environment must be inspected. As previously discussed, release of nanoparticles into the environment affect useful microbial activity, water treatment and aquatic systems |5|.Judging from the anthropocentric ethics, the ecological impact nanoparticles create makes the usage of nanoparticles in cosmetics unethical, as the repercussion of nanoparticles application will unwittingly cost human in the long run |29|. This idea is in line with the consequentialist ethics, both deeming the act unethical based on the aftermath. In terms of ecocentric ethics, the protection of environment carries utmost importance, as they possess intrinsic values of their own likewise with deontologist ethical theory |29|. Regarding these ethics, to ensure the safety on environment, nanoparticles should not be used in cosmetics to prevent any harm to it, due to hazard already known and the ones still under investigation.
“...renders the use of nanotechnology in cosmetic unethical and should be suspended until science proves otherwise.” 47
Conclusion
Evaluating the case from both environment ethics and current knowledge, the usage of nanoparticles can be surmise as unethical, unless an alternative disposal method that does not harm the ecosystem is contrived. Based on the present data, the use of nanoparticles may be unethical but more thorough research is required to know all the risk of this practice, as there are still many uncertainties in the knowledge. Once the gap in knowledge is filled, a clear verdict can be made, but for now the many uncertainties renders the use of nanotechnology in cosmetic unethical and should be suspended until science proves otherwise.
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Due to the increasing practice of nanotechnology in commercial products, there is a debate on the nanoparticles product safety with some supporting the usage while others counter. An industrial sector that has taken advantage of nanoparticles is the cosmetic industry. These molecules can enhance product’s performance, but change to their properties. Unfortunately, this raises some concerns regarding the health and environmental hazard of nanomaterials. Assessing the relevant data and information from ethical glasses, application of nanotechnology in cosmetic is found unethical; however, extended studies are required to elucidate the effect of nanoparticles in cosmetics. Ongoing utilization should continue to be regulated by the government.Hopefully, more research can impart an agreeable result that is accepted by all the conflicting parties in this controversy.
References
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COLOphON The Editorial Board Piotr G.S. Schulkes | President | Umme Aiemun Yousuf | Organisational Officer | Dora Vrhoci | Design | Jennifer Hong | Public Relations |
Graphic Design Veronika Radenkova [ instagram.com/veronikasdesign \ veronikarad1995.wixsite.com/portfolio ]
Illustration Ellen Offringa [ instagram.com/ellenoffringa ] Roos Winter [ rooswinter.nl \ instagram.com/rooswinter ] Marina Sulima [ instagram.com/marinadotsulima Veronika Radenkova [ behance.net/veronikarad ] Antonia Oana [ antoniaoana.com \ instagram.com/oana.antonia.ioana]
Cover Veronika Radenkova We thank our reviewers, the Council of Experts, the Honours College team, Geja Duiker and the Minerva Art Academy for their work and support. We acknowledge the University of Groningen Honours College for their financial support. Issue 11 / June 2018 / ISSN 2214-6083 Edition: 500 copies Honours Review is a publication of students at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. For more info, visit: honoursreview.com Facebook: Honours Review Instagram: @HonoursReview
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