Journals
2026 EN
Plessis Gitte
Abstract The spectre of resource scarcity as a cause of war is dominant in discussions about potential links between climate change and armed conflict. Via engagement with Georges Bataille's theory of a general economy of the biosphere, this article conceptualises the relationship between climate change and war by focusing on resource excess as a threat. Positing resource excess and thereby the burning of fossil fuels, rather than resource scarcity and climate change, as threatening, puts focus on the production and acquisition of fossil fuels as perilous in relation to armed conflict, rather than painting often racialised individuals and countries who are victims of climate change as risks to security. Applying Bataille's thinking to the relationship between climate change and war moves beyond Malthusian crisis narratives and highlights the necessity of abandoning attachments to security as a progressive ideal.
Journals
2026 EN
Binoy Parvathy
ABSTRACT This article develops the concept of an embodied geography of remains to examine how landscapes scarred by war, industry, and technoscience continue to act upon human and more‐than‐human life. Drawing on Black feminist geography and Asian feminist political ecology, it explores how toxic residues, spectral presences, and living bodies form co‐constituted archives of harm, care, and resistance. Through three case studies—the afterlives of Agent Orange in Vietnam, the Bhopal gas disaster, and the Fukushima nuclear crisis—the paper traces how women's everyday practices of caregiving, ritual, and citizen science generate embodied knowledge that challenges colonial and technocratic narratives. It argues that environmental justice is inseparable from acts of remembering and repair, as both land and body bear the traces of historical violence. Ultimately, the article calls for a feminist political ecology of memory—one attentive to the endurance of life within haunted landscapes.
Journals
2026 EN
Sotomayor Ian · Morska Liliya · Fox Cosette
+8 more
Abstract Adolescents across the globe experience increasing demands for care, and the mental health of Polish and Ukrainian youth is especially concerning, due to ongoing war and displacement. This study explores the acceptability, feasibility, and short‐term effects of a digital, self‐guided single‐session intervention (SSI) for improving the mental health of Polish and Ukrainian youth, including Ukrainian refugees in Poland. A non‐randomized, open pilot trial was conducted from March to June 2024, involving youth aged 10–18 years from Poland and Ukraine. Participants completed an SSI after cultural adaptations and translation into Polish and Ukrainian. Measures assessed hopelessness, self‐hate, agency, perceived control, and acceptability. Statistical analyses included paired t‐tests and effect size calculations to examine intervention effects. Among 176 Polish and 139 Ukrainian youth who began the intervention, completion rates were 80.7% and 62.6%, respectively. Polish participants exhibited significant improvements in hopelessness, self‐hate, perceived control, and agency, while Ukrainian youth showed moderate improvements in perceived control but limited change in other mental health indicators. Acceptability ratings were high across all youth. Findings suggest SSIs hold potential as a scalable option for mental health care. However, the varied outcomes across the two groups highlight the need for further refinement, especially for displaced youth.
Journals
2026 EN
Gowland Ben
Abstract This paper develops a historical and political geographical analysis of the UK Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD). Empirically it is grounded in archival study of IRD files concerning operations in Ghana and South Africa during the Cold War and specifically the 1960s and 1970s. To date, there has been no geographical study of IRD and through this paper's critical study of the organisation I highlight where contributions can be made to existing scholarship on the geographies of intelligence and diplomacy. In examining IRD, I highlight strategies to be applied and spatialities to be investigated in relation to other organs of the British secret state. Through investigating the networks of communication, distribution and personal relations that animated IRD operations and geographers are well positioned to trace the contours of the secret state and its operations. Similarly, through interrogating IRD's relationship with the Diplomatic Service I suggest studies of the cultures and practices of diplomacy can be enriched by highlighting the role of state secrecy and subversion in these contexts. I suggest studying IRD can open up a more holistic examination of the geographies of the British secret state beyond a focus on particular figures or the impact of specific theories. Within British Geography there has been extensive study of the role that geography as a discipline and geographers as practitioners have played in the furtherance of British imperialism and militarism with covert actions and agencies central here. However, what this paper evidences and what I am proposing is the need for a determined and critical geographical analysis of the British secret state and its activities tout court .
Journals
2026 EN
Baumann Hanna · Sayyad Dareen · Shebeitah Reema
+4 more
ABSTRACT This paper examines the personal‐professional nexus in community‐based research to propose expanded ethical responsibilities for research involving Citizen Science. The article emerges from shared reflections by a UK and Palestine‐based team on research conducted by the Palestinian Citizen Social Scientists within their own communities in Ramallah between 2023 and 2024 – a period marked by devastating war and genocide. We foreground the negotiation and care required to adapt and continue research work in an extreme situation of collective mourning and personal risk. Based on our experience, we highlight the need to: (1) allocate space and time to consider positionalities when working in international teams and remotely in times of heightened violence; (2) attend to the risks to the reputation of Citizen Social Scientists, rarely covered by conventional risk protocols even for dangerous/conflict settings; (3) offer psychological support for researchers, whether distress is caused by the research or the wider context. These points are underpinned by the need to rethink the personal–professional distinction in research that builds on local researchers’ lived experience and personal relationships.
Journals
2026 EN
Voiculescu Sorina
ABSTRACT The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 generated the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II, with displacement strongly feminised as women and children fled under conditions of uncertainty and fear. This article examines how gendered networking practices supported refugee survival in Romania by enabling rapid social capital formation through digitally mediated support. Methodologically, the study combines qualitative content analysis of posts from the Facebook group United for Ukraine (UfU) between March and June 2022 with media analysis. Posts were coded by request/offer type, involved actors, engagement and status markers (e.g., #solved/#unsolved), and triangulated with media coverage of major reception sites such as the Isaccea and Albița border crossings and Bucharest's North Railway Station. Findings show that UfU functioned as a gender‐sensitive survival infrastructure, with Romanian women volunteers serving as key social investors, facilitating access to housing, transportation, childcare, medical aid and employment. These interactions generated bonding, bridging and linking social capital and mitigated risks such as fraud and trafficking through collective vigilance and connections to formal institutions. In conversation with Uses and Gratifications Theory, the article argues that refugees and hosts used UfU to reduce uncertainty, secure belonging and coordinate action, demonstrating how digital media can enable gendered civic innovation during crisis displacement.
Journals
2026 EN
Battisti Davide · O'Brien Gary David
ABSTRACT It is plausible that time of birth affects one's prospects for wellbeing. Being born during a war or recession might have a negative impact on early life and lifetime wellbeing. In natural reproduction, delaying conception does not result in the same child being born later, but rather a different child altogether; therefore, prospective parents cannot harm/benefit their children by choosing their time of birth. However, we argue that for prospective parents undergoing the IVF process, things are different. Since it is possible to freeze and store embryos indefinitely before implantation, parents can choose their child's time of birth. Because certain birth timings may better support wellbeing, this introduces the possibility of repro‐timing harms and benefits . This paper explores this new concept by outlining its theoretical assumptions and examining the moral reasons prospective parents in IVF might have for delaying implantation in the short, medium, and long term.
Journals
2026 EN
Bautista Hend · Fregenal Sara · Vázquez Alexandra
+2 more
Abstract Identity fusion is a synergistic union of the personal self and target of fusion that predicts extreme behaviours on its behalf. Previous work identified that intense shared dysphoric experiences cause fusion with groups, but no research to date has investigated changes in fusion before, during and after a collective traumatic experience. Six repeated cross‐sectional surveys conducted in Spain (2017–2022) (Study 1) showed that differences between sample means in fusion with the country increased during the COVID‐19 pandemic but decreased when the COVID‐19 subsided. In addition, an experiment provided support for these results (Study 2), since making salient the COVID‐19 crisis (vs. neutral situation) increased fusion with the country. Finally, three additional repeated cross‐sectional surveys conducted in Ukraine (Study 3), one month before the war, one month after the war began and eight months later, replicated that differences between sample means in fusion increased just when the war started, but decreased when the conflict turned chronic. The effects were replicated for fusion with a value, democracy. Apparently, dysphoric experiences represent a temporary drive of fusion, but not a maintenance factor.
Journals
2026 EN
Pagola Rodríguez Georgina Marcela · Zhang Yongan
Abstract In 1966, Uruguayan journalist Carlos María Gutiérrez visited the People's Republic of China (PRC) as part of China's People's Diplomacy initiative. This article examines his travel writings and official Chinese reports to explore the complexities of intellectual and cultural exchanges between the PRC and Latin America during the Cold War. It argues that Gutiérrez's journey led to a nuanced reassessment of China's revolutionary path, underscoring the significance of first‐hand encounters in shaping Latin American perspectives on socialism. His experience exemplifies the implications of People's Diplomacy, validating socialism as a path for social transformation in Latin America and the role of intellectuals in bridging ideological divides.
Journals
2026 EN
Liu Fangying · Su Chi Wei · Qin Meng
+1 more
ABSTRACT Investor sentiment significantly increases the vulnerability of financial markets and the fluctuations in asset prices. In this scenario, this research examines the nexus between stock prices (SP) and the fear and greed index (FGI) in the G7 countries, further exploring the hedging potential of stocks during periods of heightened fear sentiment. Utilizing the quantile correlation and quantile partial correlation methods, we find that the Japanese stock market can withstand short‐term shock of fear sentiment across the full sample, as well as the pandemic and Russia–Ukraine conflict period. However, the short‐term negative effects of FGI on other SPs shift in the medium and long term. Furthermore, results from the sub‐sample analysis indicate that market uncertainty stemming from the pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine war heightens investors’ risk aversion towards the stock market, resulting in a sharp short‐term decline in SP. In the long term, investors can incorporate G7 stocks into their portfolios to mitigate investment losses arising from fear sentiment. Given the complex international environment and volatile market sentiment, governments should closely monitor investor sentiment to alleviate the adverse effects triggered by the fluctuations in SP.