Tracey Skillington - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Tracey Skillington

Springer eBooks, Dec 31, 2022

˜The œinternational library of environmental, agricultural and food ethics/˜The œInternational library of environmental, agricultural and food ethics, 2024

Europe after Derrida, 2013

Springer eBooks, Dec 31, 2022

Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Jan 16, 2014

South Africa depends heavily on climatic resources and environmental assets; thus it is vulnerabl... more South Africa depends heavily on climatic resources and environmental assets; thus it is vulnerable to global climate change. At present, there is massive exploitation and utilisation of various resources in unsustainable paths. This might compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own developmental needs and values. This research paper contributes to the discussion surrounding South Africa as part of the African continent which is prone to the negative impact of climate change as a result of its carbon footprints. The article argues that government's efforts to foster intergenerational justice is compromised because of the need to grow the economy by using climatic resources and environmental assets. This notwithstanding, to some extent, the government has taken some pragmatic steps through implementation of policies, strategies and measures that address climate change. Numerous role players, stake holders and the judicia ry are being proactive in the promotion of intergenerational justice and fight against climate change in order to bequest clean and healthy environment to future generations.

Bristol University Press eBooks, May 15, 2023

Irish Journal of Sociology, Nov 1, 2009

as a moral-political witness to contemporary human suffering, the activist campaigning on various... more as a moral-political witness to contemporary human suffering, the activist campaigning on various healthcare issues makes a vital contribution to the social expansion of a human rights consciousness. Particular incidents of citizen neglect are highlighted for their exemplary significance to a more general critique of economic and administrative processes of re-structuration, including international initiatives to marketise health. This actor attempts to invert a state politics of rationalised indifference by shifting the focus from the issue of procedure to that of patient harm. With a collective consciousness of suffering at the epicentre of their campaign, protest coalitions construct policies aimed at restricting public funding for essential services, for instance, as representative of an 'embodied injustice' against the sick and the vulnerable, and as an act of moral disrespect against the population at large. as this paper argues, discontent leads to a rediscovery of the practical significance of universal norms of social justice or equality, and of the need to actively partake in the project of democracy. The specific direction and orientation of this actor's struggle for recognition within irish society is centrally shaped by established traditions of reasoning and responding to social conflict. When combined with new macroeconomic priorities, such traditions not only restrict the realisation of autonomy and difference, but continue to reinforce a culture of profound non-accountability. The theoretical conception of justice and recognition applied to this study of social conflict on health will follow that tradition of thought established in particular by axel Honneth (2003, 2007) in critical response to nancy Fraser (2003).

European Journal of Social Theory, Jul 20, 2015

A broad consensus prevails today among science communities that we have entered an era known as ‘... more A broad consensus prevails today among science communities that we have entered an era known as ‘the Anthropocene’. For the first time, the outer limit or tipping point in Nature’s capacities to adapt to the destruction of its essential resources is in sight (e.g., grave depletion of the Earth’s biodiversity and loss of a ‘safe’ nitrogen cycle) (see Rockström et al., 2009). Over the past two centuries in particular, humanity has dramatically altered the Earth’s atmosphere and natural landscape, becoming in the process a formidable geological force of change in its own right. The fact that humankind today is the most significant source of change in planetary terms requires a reflective moment. We are now in the rather daunting position of determining how this tectonic shift will shape the future of this planet and its populations. This position raises serious moral questions as to how ideas of justice should be redefined in response to rapidly changing ecological circumstances (e.g., grave loss of land and other essential resources on the part of many communities) as well as what kind of ‘Anthropocene futures’ (Berkhout, 2014: 1) we are shaping for generations to come. As Strydom notes in his article ‘Cognitive fluidity and climate change’, humanity is not only tasked with the challenge of mastering an objectivist knowledge of nature’s outer limits but also of complementing scientific understanding of the biological, chemical and physical substance of life with a more reflexive hermeneutic reconstruction of how humanity has arrived at this point of destruction in its historical development. If this moment of crisis is to be transformative, then such reflection must also be critical and disclosing of those underlining aspects of modern social life that contribute detrimentally to human ecological destruction. Just as the cognitive capacities of the human mind steadily acquired greater ‘fluidity’ during prehistoric times, allowing the substitution of largely mobile hunting–gathering for more sedentary farming forms of human existence and the large-scale acquisition

British Journal of Sociology, Sep 1, 2013

Sustainable Development, Aug 1, 1996

Four elements are discussed: (i) the application of environmental ethics to business practices an... more Four elements are discussed: (i) the application of environmental ethics to business practices and logic as a process of normative innovation; (ii) the communication of environmental ethics through specific business channels; (iii) its action-shaping influence on the economy as a social system; and (iv) assimilation of environmental ethics in the economy over time influencing social and cultural norms. The extent to which this pattern occurs is determined by the degree of innovativeness and learning capacities of business actors operating within the economic system. An account is given of these various stages of change as initiated by a number of 'environmentally conscious' change advocates in the area.

Scandinavian Journal of Public Health

The need to visualise the complexity of the determinants of population health and their interacti... more The need to visualise the complexity of the determinants of population health and their interactions inspired the development of the rainbow model. In this commentary we chronicle how variations of this model have emerged, including the initial models of Haglund and Svanström (1982), Dahlgren and Whitehead (1991), and the Östgöta model (2014), and we illustrate how these models have been influential in both public health and beyond. All these models have strong Nordic connections and are thus an important Nordic contribution to public health. Further, these models have underpinned and facilitated other examples of Nordic leadership in public health, including practical efforts to address health inequalities and design new health policy approaches. Apart from documenting the emergence of rainbow models and their wide range of contemporary uses, we examine a range of criticisms levelled at these models – including limitations in methodological development and in scope. We propose the ...

Discourse Studies

This paper addresses arguments raised by van Dijk in his critical appraisal of framing approaches... more This paper addresses arguments raised by van Dijk in his critical appraisal of framing approaches to social movement research. In particular, the claim that frame analysis does not give sufficient attention to the intricate details of the interpretive process. In making this argument, van Dijk leans heavily on Goffman’s first category of frames (as individual acts of interpretation) at the expense of his second (relating more to inter-subjectively shared classes of schemata) used reflexively, for instance, by movements to embed a message of protest in wider value systems in the hope that it resonates sufficiently with the grounded experiences, grievances, beliefs, and cultural orientations of publics. This paper highlights how social movement frame research accounts for both categories of frames to illustrate how movements communicate across multiple levels of social interaction to maximize the societal impact of their message. When interpreted in these broader terms, the ‘how’ of i...

European Journal of Social Theory

This article assesses the contribution of a long tradition of critical inquiry to understanding h... more This article assesses the contribution of a long tradition of critical inquiry to understanding how ‘felt contact’ with the world, in this instance a heating planet and its detrimental impacts, provokes ‘thinking beyond’ its limits to take account of the cosmopolitan potentials created by new planetary conditions. In particular, it examines the contributions of Hegel, Marx, Adorno and more recently Rosa to a critical theory of subjective resonance and reflective learning from encounters with damaged life. It notes the significance of these experiences to new initiatives aimed at forcing constructs of justice to turn more imaginatively towards the implications of embodied contact with climate adversity, and to addressing deepening contradictions between ideals of justices and lived struggles to protect nature and thought’s freedom from domination.

Ética e responsabilidade social: a contribuição do engenheiro de produção, 2006

This paper applies a SRT framework to the study of two case studies, namely the recent campaign o... more This paper applies a SRT framework to the study of two case studies, namely the recent campaign of opposition to the legalization of hydraulic fracking in the State of New York and the more ongoing debate on land leasing in Africa. In relation to both campaigns, the analysis accounts for the arguments of a major financial institution and industry representatives who stress the safe and value-adding dimensions of these practices, as well as the views of opponents who refute the validity of industry's position and point to the unacceptable risks posed to the community, health and the environment. In spite of a number of obvious differences between these two case studies, not least differences arising from contrasting socioeconomic and geo-political settings, there were also some notable similarities. First, was a tendency amongst

This chapter explores what effects a greater public knowledge of deteriorating climate conditions... more This chapter explores what effects a greater public knowledge of deteriorating climate conditions has on societally shared ideas of justice. In particular, it considers whether such knowledge prompts a more urgent need for a justification of those institutional practices that centrally shape the ecological fate of current and future generations. One guiding assumption of liberal democratic societies is that justice owes its validity to continuing procedures of democratic justification. Of key importance is the degree to which current procedures for addressing climate change issues have secured their political credibility through a genuinely intersubjective justification process open to all affected parties. Rawls’ distinction between an ‘ideal justice’ suited to a well-ordered society (Rawls 1971: 215) and ‘non-ideal’ scenarios offers a useful starting point when attempting to answer this question. The political, legal, and economic structures of liberal capitalist regimes claim to ...

Transnationally felt, deteriorating global climate conditions have the effect of making individua... more Transnationally felt, deteriorating global climate conditions have the effect of making individual sovereign states appear too small to resolve the growing range of problems they present to humanity at large. The era of the Anthropocene has ushered in a series of geological and social transformations that do not apply exclusively to any one corner of the globe but represent a level of threat that every state is required to internalize. Although clearly limited in its own isolated capacities to halt the intensity of a globally relevant environmental destruction, the contemporary sovereign state, nevertheless, continues to be an important enabler of transformative potentials even as it also proves a major hindrance to efforts to address climate change problems. States acting consistently in self-interest have shown themselves to be a serious obstacle to the formation of more co-operative arrangements on issues such as resource sharing, accommodating displaced persons, or devising a co...

Springer eBooks, Dec 31, 2022

˜The œinternational library of environmental, agricultural and food ethics/˜The œInternational library of environmental, agricultural and food ethics, 2024

Europe after Derrida, 2013

Springer eBooks, Dec 31, 2022

Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Jan 16, 2014

South Africa depends heavily on climatic resources and environmental assets; thus it is vulnerabl... more South Africa depends heavily on climatic resources and environmental assets; thus it is vulnerable to global climate change. At present, there is massive exploitation and utilisation of various resources in unsustainable paths. This might compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own developmental needs and values. This research paper contributes to the discussion surrounding South Africa as part of the African continent which is prone to the negative impact of climate change as a result of its carbon footprints. The article argues that government's efforts to foster intergenerational justice is compromised because of the need to grow the economy by using climatic resources and environmental assets. This notwithstanding, to some extent, the government has taken some pragmatic steps through implementation of policies, strategies and measures that address climate change. Numerous role players, stake holders and the judicia ry are being proactive in the promotion of intergenerational justice and fight against climate change in order to bequest clean and healthy environment to future generations.

Bristol University Press eBooks, May 15, 2023

Irish Journal of Sociology, Nov 1, 2009

as a moral-political witness to contemporary human suffering, the activist campaigning on various... more as a moral-political witness to contemporary human suffering, the activist campaigning on various healthcare issues makes a vital contribution to the social expansion of a human rights consciousness. Particular incidents of citizen neglect are highlighted for their exemplary significance to a more general critique of economic and administrative processes of re-structuration, including international initiatives to marketise health. This actor attempts to invert a state politics of rationalised indifference by shifting the focus from the issue of procedure to that of patient harm. With a collective consciousness of suffering at the epicentre of their campaign, protest coalitions construct policies aimed at restricting public funding for essential services, for instance, as representative of an 'embodied injustice' against the sick and the vulnerable, and as an act of moral disrespect against the population at large. as this paper argues, discontent leads to a rediscovery of the practical significance of universal norms of social justice or equality, and of the need to actively partake in the project of democracy. The specific direction and orientation of this actor's struggle for recognition within irish society is centrally shaped by established traditions of reasoning and responding to social conflict. When combined with new macroeconomic priorities, such traditions not only restrict the realisation of autonomy and difference, but continue to reinforce a culture of profound non-accountability. The theoretical conception of justice and recognition applied to this study of social conflict on health will follow that tradition of thought established in particular by axel Honneth (2003, 2007) in critical response to nancy Fraser (2003).

European Journal of Social Theory, Jul 20, 2015

A broad consensus prevails today among science communities that we have entered an era known as ‘... more A broad consensus prevails today among science communities that we have entered an era known as ‘the Anthropocene’. For the first time, the outer limit or tipping point in Nature’s capacities to adapt to the destruction of its essential resources is in sight (e.g., grave depletion of the Earth’s biodiversity and loss of a ‘safe’ nitrogen cycle) (see Rockström et al., 2009). Over the past two centuries in particular, humanity has dramatically altered the Earth’s atmosphere and natural landscape, becoming in the process a formidable geological force of change in its own right. The fact that humankind today is the most significant source of change in planetary terms requires a reflective moment. We are now in the rather daunting position of determining how this tectonic shift will shape the future of this planet and its populations. This position raises serious moral questions as to how ideas of justice should be redefined in response to rapidly changing ecological circumstances (e.g., grave loss of land and other essential resources on the part of many communities) as well as what kind of ‘Anthropocene futures’ (Berkhout, 2014: 1) we are shaping for generations to come. As Strydom notes in his article ‘Cognitive fluidity and climate change’, humanity is not only tasked with the challenge of mastering an objectivist knowledge of nature’s outer limits but also of complementing scientific understanding of the biological, chemical and physical substance of life with a more reflexive hermeneutic reconstruction of how humanity has arrived at this point of destruction in its historical development. If this moment of crisis is to be transformative, then such reflection must also be critical and disclosing of those underlining aspects of modern social life that contribute detrimentally to human ecological destruction. Just as the cognitive capacities of the human mind steadily acquired greater ‘fluidity’ during prehistoric times, allowing the substitution of largely mobile hunting–gathering for more sedentary farming forms of human existence and the large-scale acquisition

British Journal of Sociology, Sep 1, 2013

Sustainable Development, Aug 1, 1996

Four elements are discussed: (i) the application of environmental ethics to business practices an... more Four elements are discussed: (i) the application of environmental ethics to business practices and logic as a process of normative innovation; (ii) the communication of environmental ethics through specific business channels; (iii) its action-shaping influence on the economy as a social system; and (iv) assimilation of environmental ethics in the economy over time influencing social and cultural norms. The extent to which this pattern occurs is determined by the degree of innovativeness and learning capacities of business actors operating within the economic system. An account is given of these various stages of change as initiated by a number of 'environmentally conscious' change advocates in the area.

Scandinavian Journal of Public Health

The need to visualise the complexity of the determinants of population health and their interacti... more The need to visualise the complexity of the determinants of population health and their interactions inspired the development of the rainbow model. In this commentary we chronicle how variations of this model have emerged, including the initial models of Haglund and Svanström (1982), Dahlgren and Whitehead (1991), and the Östgöta model (2014), and we illustrate how these models have been influential in both public health and beyond. All these models have strong Nordic connections and are thus an important Nordic contribution to public health. Further, these models have underpinned and facilitated other examples of Nordic leadership in public health, including practical efforts to address health inequalities and design new health policy approaches. Apart from documenting the emergence of rainbow models and their wide range of contemporary uses, we examine a range of criticisms levelled at these models – including limitations in methodological development and in scope. We propose the ...

Discourse Studies

This paper addresses arguments raised by van Dijk in his critical appraisal of framing approaches... more This paper addresses arguments raised by van Dijk in his critical appraisal of framing approaches to social movement research. In particular, the claim that frame analysis does not give sufficient attention to the intricate details of the interpretive process. In making this argument, van Dijk leans heavily on Goffman’s first category of frames (as individual acts of interpretation) at the expense of his second (relating more to inter-subjectively shared classes of schemata) used reflexively, for instance, by movements to embed a message of protest in wider value systems in the hope that it resonates sufficiently with the grounded experiences, grievances, beliefs, and cultural orientations of publics. This paper highlights how social movement frame research accounts for both categories of frames to illustrate how movements communicate across multiple levels of social interaction to maximize the societal impact of their message. When interpreted in these broader terms, the ‘how’ of i...

European Journal of Social Theory

This article assesses the contribution of a long tradition of critical inquiry to understanding h... more This article assesses the contribution of a long tradition of critical inquiry to understanding how ‘felt contact’ with the world, in this instance a heating planet and its detrimental impacts, provokes ‘thinking beyond’ its limits to take account of the cosmopolitan potentials created by new planetary conditions. In particular, it examines the contributions of Hegel, Marx, Adorno and more recently Rosa to a critical theory of subjective resonance and reflective learning from encounters with damaged life. It notes the significance of these experiences to new initiatives aimed at forcing constructs of justice to turn more imaginatively towards the implications of embodied contact with climate adversity, and to addressing deepening contradictions between ideals of justices and lived struggles to protect nature and thought’s freedom from domination.

Ética e responsabilidade social: a contribuição do engenheiro de produção, 2006

This paper applies a SRT framework to the study of two case studies, namely the recent campaign o... more This paper applies a SRT framework to the study of two case studies, namely the recent campaign of opposition to the legalization of hydraulic fracking in the State of New York and the more ongoing debate on land leasing in Africa. In relation to both campaigns, the analysis accounts for the arguments of a major financial institution and industry representatives who stress the safe and value-adding dimensions of these practices, as well as the views of opponents who refute the validity of industry's position and point to the unacceptable risks posed to the community, health and the environment. In spite of a number of obvious differences between these two case studies, not least differences arising from contrasting socioeconomic and geo-political settings, there were also some notable similarities. First, was a tendency amongst

This chapter explores what effects a greater public knowledge of deteriorating climate conditions... more This chapter explores what effects a greater public knowledge of deteriorating climate conditions has on societally shared ideas of justice. In particular, it considers whether such knowledge prompts a more urgent need for a justification of those institutional practices that centrally shape the ecological fate of current and future generations. One guiding assumption of liberal democratic societies is that justice owes its validity to continuing procedures of democratic justification. Of key importance is the degree to which current procedures for addressing climate change issues have secured their political credibility through a genuinely intersubjective justification process open to all affected parties. Rawls’ distinction between an ‘ideal justice’ suited to a well-ordered society (Rawls 1971: 215) and ‘non-ideal’ scenarios offers a useful starting point when attempting to answer this question. The political, legal, and economic structures of liberal capitalist regimes claim to ...

Transnationally felt, deteriorating global climate conditions have the effect of making individua... more Transnationally felt, deteriorating global climate conditions have the effect of making individual sovereign states appear too small to resolve the growing range of problems they present to humanity at large. The era of the Anthropocene has ushered in a series of geological and social transformations that do not apply exclusively to any one corner of the globe but represent a level of threat that every state is required to internalize. Although clearly limited in its own isolated capacities to halt the intensity of a globally relevant environmental destruction, the contemporary sovereign state, nevertheless, continues to be an important enabler of transformative potentials even as it also proves a major hindrance to efforts to address climate change problems. States acting consistently in self-interest have shown themselves to be a serious obstacle to the formation of more co-operative arrangements on issues such as resource sharing, accommodating displaced persons, or devising a co...