Asuncion Lera St Clair
Biographic Data
| ID | 3935569 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Asuncion Lera St Clair |
| GIVEN NAMES | Asuncion Lera St |
| FAMILY NAME | Clair |
| SIGNATURE | CLAIR A L S |
| AFFILIATIONS | DNV (Norway) |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 77 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Radical challenges for development ethics in the anthropocene
The field of development ethics has evolved over the years to incorporate topics that have become of the utmost importance in achieving fair and sustainable development for all. This is not the place to review such a conceptual evolution from the origins of Denis Goulet's writings, but I wish to note how the saliency of development ethics is highly dependent on speaking to and relating with issues of central importance to global society. In this …
Engagement, involvement and empowerment
While knowledge coproduction between climate scientists and climate information users has become a common theme in the climate services discourse, the interface between climate service providers and users is an aspect of climate services projects that still calls for more attention. This is due in part to the dominance of the physical sciences in these projects, as well as the prevalence of an instrumental and narrow interpretation of coproductio…
One world or two? Science–policy interactions in the climate field
This article assesses how science–policy interactions are conceptualized in the social sciences with special reference to climate change and the IPCC. In terms of the dimension of distance (or proximity) between science and policy, we discern two ideal-type cases: a ‘two-worlds’ and a ‘one-world’ perspective. The first understands science and policy as independent spheres separated by a clear gap, while the second perceives science and policy as …
Synthesizing a policy-relevant perspective from the three IPCC “Worlds”—A comparison of topics and frames in the SPMs of the Fifth Assessment Report
The four tasks of development ethics at times of a changing climate
This paper argues that the challenges posed by climate change and the need to quickly move toward a sustainable low-carbon future require the contributions of development ethics. I propose four tasks for development ethics. The first relates to unpacking the urgency posed by climate change by showing how, from an ethical perspective, the impacts of climate change are extremely dangerous risks, especially for those most vulnerable, and thus requir…
Inequality and transformation analyses
Vulnerability assessments (VAs) are the dominant method to establish who and what is vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. Researchers and practitioners typically use VAs to measure material vulnerability in terms of unbalanced sets of assets and institutional vulnerability regarding socially differentiated access to rights and decision-making processes. However, as scholarship on vulnerability and adaptation aligns in a better ma…
Social Movements, the Poor and the New Politics of the Americas
An Analysis of the Human Development Report 2011
The Human Development Report 2007/2008 about climate change and development made bold arguments concerning human rights and justice for the poor and for disadvantaged populations. However, its policy proposals were not as bold, looking very similar to those of the World Bank's World Development Report 2010. In this article we investigate in which direction the thinking on environment and sustainability by UNDP's Human Development Report Office ha…
Introduction
Climate change is one of the central challenges to the future of African countries and their people. Unless concerted efforts are made worldwide in a very short time to reduce emissions, climate change impacts in Africa are likely to be devastating
Social Movements, the Poor and the New Politics of the Americas
This essay, reflecting on the articles in this special issue and the conference where they were originally presented, points to the political transformations that have occurred in Latin America in the last 20 years, particularly in relation to poverty. The emerging new politics is not simply a reaction to neoliberal policies but stems from long-term historical trajectories of marginalization and struggle. Changes in the political landscape includ…
The framing of climate change and development
Climate Change Lawfare
Climate change poses unprecedented challenges. No one knows how suitable a planet three or four degrees warmer on average will be for human life. What we do know is that climate change impacts are already changing socioecological systems and will lead to profound changes, as well as conflicts over resources. This article looks at how issues concerning the injustice and human rights violations caused by climate change are transformed and manifeste…
Poverty, Human Rights, and Global Justice
In this article we argue that questions about responsibility for eradicating poverty may be restated as ‘who is response-able?’—in other words, ‘who is capable of responding in such a way as to remedy the harm?’; and an important part of the answer is international organizations. Created and maintained by ourselves acting collectively, these organizations play an important role in making and applying global rules that often determine the capabili…
Social policy and global poverty
Climate Change, Ethics and Human Security
Presenting human security perspectives on climate change, this volume raises issues of equity, ethics and environmental justice, as well as our capacity to respond to what is increasingly considered to be the greatest societal challenge for humankind. Written by international experts, it argues that climate change must be viewed as an issue of human security, and not an environmental problem that can be managed in isolation from larger questions …
Rights and Riches
Conditional Cash Transfers
A Methodologically Pragmatist Approach to Development Ethics
This paper suggests that lessons from the field of environmental ethics and sociological perspectives on knowledge are important tools for rethinking what type of ethical analysis is needed for building up further the field of development ethics and, more generally, for addressing some of the most fundamental ethical problems related to global poverty and development. The paper argues for a methodologically pragmatist approach to development ethi…
Global poverty
Any plausible conception of what may constitute fair globalization needs to address the processes that produce and reproduce global poverty. In this essay I argue that the ethical aspects of global poverty lead to a redefining of both development and globalization. In addition, as the ‘global’ impinges increasingly on every field of knowledge (and praxis) so too development, philosophy, and ethics and the relations among these fields of knowledge…
Global Poverty
This article argues that insights from the field of social studies of science and technology are relevant for assessing the highly politicized and contested knowledge for development and the eradication of global poverty elaborated by the World Bank. The World Bank, which has become a transnational expert institution, is best characterized as a ‘site of co-production’, producing both knowledge and social orders. Such a perspective helps in unveil…
The World Bank as a Transnational Expertised Institution
The World Bank has become an expertised transnational institution and thus subject to the problems of expertise identified by social studies of science. The legitimacy and credibility of the Bank's expertise is drawn through a circular process between the knowledge it produces and the audiences that legitimize that knowledge. Untangling such circularity is crucial because global poverty and development are not simple social facts awaiting to be d…
The framing of climate change and development
Global Poverty
This article argues that insights from the field of social studies of science and technology are relevant for assessing the highly politicized and contested knowledge for development and the eradication of global poverty elaborated by the World Bank. The World Bank, which has become a transnational expert institution, is best characterized as a ‘site of co-production’, producing both knowledge and social orders. Such a perspective helps in unveil…
Engagement, involvement and empowerment
While knowledge coproduction between climate scientists and climate information users has become a common theme in the climate services discourse, the interface between climate service providers and users is an aspect of climate services projects that still calls for more attention. This is due in part to the dominance of the physical sciences in these projects, as well as the prevalence of an instrumental and narrow interpretation of coproductio…
The World Bank as a Transnational Expertised Institution
The World Bank has become an expertised transnational institution and thus subject to the problems of expertise identified by social studies of science. The legitimacy and credibility of the Bank's expertise is drawn through a circular process between the knowledge it produces and the audiences that legitimize that knowledge. Untangling such circularity is crucial because global poverty and development are not simple social facts awaiting to be d…
One world or two? Science–policy interactions in the climate field
This article assesses how science–policy interactions are conceptualized in the social sciences with special reference to climate change and the IPCC. In terms of the dimension of distance (or proximity) between science and policy, we discern two ideal-type cases: a ‘two-worlds’ and a ‘one-world’ perspective. The first understands science and policy as independent spheres separated by a clear gap, while the second perceives science and policy as …
Synthesizing a policy-relevant perspective from the three IPCC “Worlds”—A comparison of topics and frames in the SPMs of the Fifth Assessment Report
Global poverty
Any plausible conception of what may constitute fair globalization needs to address the processes that produce and reproduce global poverty. In this essay I argue that the ethical aspects of global poverty lead to a redefining of both development and globalization. In addition, as the ‘global’ impinges increasingly on every field of knowledge (and praxis) so too development, philosophy, and ethics and the relations among these fields of knowledge…
Poverty, Human Rights, and Global Justice
In this article we argue that questions about responsibility for eradicating poverty may be restated as ‘who is response-able?’—in other words, ‘who is capable of responding in such a way as to remedy the harm?’; and an important part of the answer is international organizations. Created and maintained by ourselves acting collectively, these organizations play an important role in making and applying global rules that often determine the capabili…
Climate Change Lawfare
Climate change poses unprecedented challenges. No one knows how suitable a planet three or four degrees warmer on average will be for human life. What we do know is that climate change impacts are already changing socioecological systems and will lead to profound changes, as well as conflicts over resources. This article looks at how issues concerning the injustice and human rights violations caused by climate change are transformed and manifeste…
Conditional Cash Transfers
A Methodologically Pragmatist Approach to Development Ethics
This paper suggests that lessons from the field of environmental ethics and sociological perspectives on knowledge are important tools for rethinking what type of ethical analysis is needed for building up further the field of development ethics and, more generally, for addressing some of the most fundamental ethical problems related to global poverty and development. The paper argues for a methodologically pragmatist approach to development ethi…
Social Movements, the Poor and the New Politics of the Americas
This essay, reflecting on the articles in this special issue and the conference where they were originally presented, points to the political transformations that have occurred in Latin America in the last 20 years, particularly in relation to poverty. The emerging new politics is not simply a reaction to neoliberal policies but stems from long-term historical trajectories of marginalization and struggle. Changes in the political landscape includ…
Social policy and global poverty
Global poverty
Any plausible conception of what may constitute fair globalization needs to address the processes that produce and reproduce global poverty. In this essay I argue that the ethical aspects of global poverty lead to a redefining of both development and globalization. In addition, as the ‘global’ impinges increasingly on every field of knowledge (and praxis) so too development, philosophy, and ethics and the relations among these fields of knowledge…
Global Poverty
This article argues that insights from the field of social studies of science and technology are relevant for assessing the highly politicized and contested knowledge for development and the eradication of global poverty elaborated by the World Bank. The World Bank, which has become a transnational expert institution, is best characterized as a ‘site of co-production’, producing both knowledge and social orders. Such a perspective helps in unveil…
The World Bank as a Transnational Expertised Institution
The World Bank has become an expertised transnational institution and thus subject to the problems of expertise identified by social studies of science. The legitimacy and credibility of the Bank's expertise is drawn through a circular process between the knowledge it produces and the audiences that legitimize that knowledge. Untangling such circularity is crucial because global poverty and development are not simple social facts awaiting to be d…
A Methodologically Pragmatist Approach to Development Ethics
This paper suggests that lessons from the field of environmental ethics and sociological perspectives on knowledge are important tools for rethinking what type of ethical analysis is needed for building up further the field of development ethics and, more generally, for addressing some of the most fundamental ethical problems related to global poverty and development. The paper argues for a methodologically pragmatist approach to development ethi…
Conditional Cash Transfers
Climate Change, Ethics and Human Security
Presenting human security perspectives on climate change, this volume raises issues of equity, ethics and environmental justice, as well as our capacity to respond to what is increasingly considered to be the greatest societal challenge for humankind. Written by international experts, it argues that climate change must be viewed as an issue of human security, and not an environmental problem that can be managed in isolation from larger questions …
Rights and Riches
Poverty, Human Rights, and Global Justice
In this article we argue that questions about responsibility for eradicating poverty may be restated as ‘who is response-able?’—in other words, ‘who is capable of responding in such a way as to remedy the harm?’; and an important part of the answer is international organizations. Created and maintained by ourselves acting collectively, these organizations play an important role in making and applying global rules that often determine the capabili…
Social policy and global poverty
Social Movements, the Poor and the New Politics of the Americas
This essay, reflecting on the articles in this special issue and the conference where they were originally presented, points to the political transformations that have occurred in Latin America in the last 20 years, particularly in relation to poverty. The emerging new politics is not simply a reaction to neoliberal policies but stems from long-term historical trajectories of marginalization and struggle. Changes in the political landscape includ…
The framing of climate change and development
Climate Change Lawfare
Climate change poses unprecedented challenges. No one knows how suitable a planet three or four degrees warmer on average will be for human life. What we do know is that climate change impacts are already changing socioecological systems and will lead to profound changes, as well as conflicts over resources. This article looks at how issues concerning the injustice and human rights violations caused by climate change are transformed and manifeste…
Inequality and transformation analyses
Vulnerability assessments (VAs) are the dominant method to establish who and what is vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. Researchers and practitioners typically use VAs to measure material vulnerability in terms of unbalanced sets of assets and institutional vulnerability regarding socially differentiated access to rights and decision-making processes. However, as scholarship on vulnerability and adaptation aligns in a better ma…
Social Movements, the Poor and the New Politics of the Americas
An Analysis of the Human Development Report 2011
The Human Development Report 2007/2008 about climate change and development made bold arguments concerning human rights and justice for the poor and for disadvantaged populations. However, its policy proposals were not as bold, looking very similar to those of the World Bank's World Development Report 2010. In this article we investigate in which direction the thinking on environment and sustainability by UNDP's Human Development Report Office ha…
Introduction
Climate change is one of the central challenges to the future of African countries and their people. Unless concerted efforts are made worldwide in a very short time to reduce emissions, climate change impacts in Africa are likely to be devastating
The four tasks of development ethics at times of a changing climate
This paper argues that the challenges posed by climate change and the need to quickly move toward a sustainable low-carbon future require the contributions of development ethics. I propose four tasks for development ethics. The first relates to unpacking the urgency posed by climate change by showing how, from an ethical perspective, the impacts of climate change are extremely dangerous risks, especially for those most vulnerable, and thus requir…
Synthesizing a policy-relevant perspective from the three IPCC “Worlds”—A comparison of topics and frames in the SPMs of the Fifth Assessment Report
One world or two? Science–policy interactions in the climate field
This article assesses how science–policy interactions are conceptualized in the social sciences with special reference to climate change and the IPCC. In terms of the dimension of distance (or proximity) between science and policy, we discern two ideal-type cases: a ‘two-worlds’ and a ‘one-world’ perspective. The first understands science and policy as independent spheres separated by a clear gap, while the second perceives science and policy as …
Engagement, involvement and empowerment
While knowledge coproduction between climate scientists and climate information users has become a common theme in the climate services discourse, the interface between climate service providers and users is an aspect of climate services projects that still calls for more attention. This is due in part to the dominance of the physical sciences in these projects, as well as the prevalence of an instrumental and narrow interpretation of coproductio…
Radical challenges for development ethics in the anthropocene
The field of development ethics has evolved over the years to incorporate topics that have become of the utmost importance in achieving fair and sustainable development for all. This is not the place to review such a conceptual evolution from the origins of Denis Goulet's writings, but I wish to note how the saliency of development ethics is highly dependent on speaking to and relating with issues of central importance to global society. In this …
Political science (19 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Climate change (8 works) · Environmental ethics (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Poverty (8 works) · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · Politics (7 works)