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1. Toynbee Coronavirus Series: Dipesh Chakrabarty on zoonotic pathogens, human life, and pandemic in the age of the Anthropocene

Author:
Dipesh Chakrabarty
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Toynbee Prize Foundation
Abstract:
Living through historically unprecedented times has strengthened the Toynbee Prize Foundation's commitment to thinking globally about history and to representing that perspective in the public sphere. In this multimedia series on the covid-19 pandemic, we will be bringing global history to bear in thinking through the raging coronavirus and the range of social, intellectual, economic, political, and scientific crises triggered and aggravated by it. Toynbee Prize Awardee Dipesh Chakrabarty is the Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor of History, South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and the College at University of Chicago. He is a founding member of the editorial collective of Subaltern Studies, a consulting editor of Critical Inquiry, a founding editor of Postcolonial Studies, and has served on the editorial boards of the American Historical Review and Public Culture, among others. His distinctions, publications, and awards are too numerous to mention; the landmark work for which he is perhaps best known, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, 2000; second edition, 2008), has been translated into Italian, French, Polish, Spanish Turkish, and Korean and is being brought out in Chinese. Included among his vast range of research interests are the implications of climate change science for historical and political thought and, most relevant for our discussion today, the Anthropocene.
Topic:
Climate Change, Coronavirus, Pandemic, COVID-19, Ecology, and Anthropocene
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. When the Water Runs Out: The Rise (and Inevitable Fall) of the Deserts of Southwest Afghanistan and its Impact on Migration, Poppy and Stability

Author:
David Mansfield
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU)
Abstract:
There are up to 1.4 million people in southwestern Afghanistan whose livelihoods are under threat. These people reside in the former desert areas of Farah, Nimroz, Helmand and Kandahar. In the 1990s, this region was largely barren uninhabited land, apart from the valley of Khash Rud in Nimruz and the lower part of Marjah. Drawing on fieldwork conducted over a 10-year period, and using high-resolution remote imagery, this paper charts the processes that led to the encroachment, settlement and transformation of the deserts of the southwest. It documents how patterns of migration to these areas varied over time and by location, and details how these once barren landscapes were transformed into areas of permanent settlement. The paper then provides evidence of how this rapid transformation has impacted the population that reside there, and outlines the threats to the long-term viability of their livelihoods. Finally, the paper recommends solutions to the pressures on this population, not just in addressing the factors that drive migration to these former desert areas, but also interventions that might ease the economic, social and environmental challenges that those living there currently face, potentially preventing a massive displacement of people within Afghanistan, to neighbouring countries and possibly further afield.
Topic:
Environment, Migration, Natural Resources, Water, and Ecology
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and South Asia