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September 18, 2025

Prueba de fluidez verbal: lo que revela nuestro cerebro en un solo minuto

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Loles Villalobos Tornero, Facultad de Psicología. Departamento de psicología experimental procesos cognitivos y logopedia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

¿Qué pasa en nuestro cerebro cuando intentamos concentrarnos, recordar un nombre o tomar una decisión rápida? La evaluación neuropsicológica es una de las formas que tenemos de explorar estas funciones. Gracias a ella, los profesionales pueden conocer cómo funcionan la atención, la memoria, el lenguaje o las llamadas funciones ejecutivas, que nos ayudan en aspectos tan importantes como planificar, tomar decisiones o inhibir impulsos.

La prueba de los sesenta segundos

Entre las pruebas más conocidas hay una que parece un juego: la prueba de fluidez verbal. Consiste en pedirle a la persona que diga, en un minuto, todas las palabras que pueda que empiecen por una letra concreta o que pertenezcan a una categoría, como por ejemplo, animales. Su simplicidad y la ausencia de materiales específicos la han convertido en una tarea universal: se usa en diferentes idiomas y culturas, y cuenta con abundantes datos normativos.

Tradicionalmente, lo que se analiza es el número total de palabras pronunciadas durante ese minuto. Esa simple cifra ya ofrece información relevante sobre procesos que subyacen a esta actividad como la velocidad de acceso al léxico o la agilidad de pensamiento. Sin embargo, en los últimos años se ha descubierto que la prueba encierra muchos más matices de lo que parece a simple vista.

Imaginemos un ejemplo. Le pedimos a una persona de 30 años, con estudios de bachillerato, que nombre animales durante un minuto. A continuación ésta nos dice: “perro, gato, tortuga, gallina, oveja, cabra, vaca, toro, elefante, jirafa, león, tigre, mono, tucán, pelícano, gorrión, golondrina, búho, cuervo, murciélago, delfín, tiburón, ballena, calamar, sardina”.

En total, ha nombrado 25 animales. Si comparamos este resultado con los baremos existentes para su grupo de edad y educación, obtiene un percentil 10, es decir, justo lo esperado.

Mucho más que contar palabras

Hasta aquí, tenemos un dato interesante. Pero si observamos con más detalle, descubrimos algo aún más revelador. ¿Se ha fijado en cómo se han ordenado los animales? La persona no ha ido diciendo palabras al azar: ha generado pequeños grupos, casi sin darse cuenta. Primero las mascotas, luego animales de granja, después los africanos, más tarde aves y, finalmente, animales marinos.

Este fenómeno se llama clustering, y se refiere a la tendencia a agrupar elementos relacionados. Y el momento en el que la persona deja un grupo y pasa a otro se denomina switching.

Analizar cuántos grupos se forman y cuántos cambios se hacen nos aporta una información mucho más rica. No solo nos habla del acceso al vocabulario, sino también de funciones como la inhibición de respuestas, la flexibilidad cognitiva o la capacidad de actualizar la información mental. En otras palabras, de nuestras funciones ejecutivas.

Un valor especial en los pacientes

Este tipo de análisis resulta especialmente valioso en población clínica. En un estudio realizado por investigadores españoles, los autores vieron que las personas con deterioro cognitivo leve generan clústeres similares a los de personas mayores sanas, pero realizan más cambios entre categorías. Esto indica que su red semántica (las conexiones entre conceptos) se conserva, pero que la utilizan de forma menos eficiente durante la búsqueda en la memoria a largo plazo, probablemente por dificultades en las funciones ejecutivas.

Además, observar otros aspectos como los errores producidos o las palabras repetidas aporta aún más valor. De hecho, se ha visto que este tipo de análisis puede incluso diferenciar entre deterioro cognitivo y enfermedad de Alzheimer.

Además de resultar útil en el envejecimiento, esta prueba también se aplica de forma sistemática a personas que han sufrido un daño cerebral sobrevenido, como un traumatismo craneoencefálico. Aunque se trate de pacientes jóvenes, después de un accidente dicen menos palabras en un minuto, forman clústeres más pequeños y realizar menos cambios entre ellos que las personas sanas. Estos resultados permiten comprobar, de manera rápida y sencilla, cómo un golpe en la cabeza puede afectar a procesos cognitivos tan complejos como la velocidad de procesamiento o la flexibilidad mental.

Conocer cómo funciona nuestro cerebro no es para nada una tarea fácil. La evaluación neuropsicológica nos da herramientas muy útiles para aproximarnos a ello. A veces pensamos que hacen falta técnicas muy sofisticadas, pero lo cierto es que una prueba sencilla como nombrar animales durante un minuto puede revelar muchísimo sobre nuestros procesos cognitivos.

Quién diría que sesenta segundos encierran tanta información.

Loles Villalobos Tornero no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. Prueba de fluidez verbal: lo que revela nuestro cerebro en un solo minuto – https://theconversation.com/prueba-de-fluidez-verbal-lo-que-revela-nuestro-cerebro-en-un-solo-minuto-264462

September 18, 2025

Los nitazenos, el peligroso relevo del fentanilo en la crisis de los opioides sintéticos

Source: The Conversation – (in Spanish) – By Elena Escubedo Rafa, Chair professor, Universitat de Barcelona

Si a finales de 2023 saltaban todas las alarmas ante la crisis sanitaria causada en Estados Unidos por el consumo abusivo de fentanilo, el escenario podría empeorar aún más con la irrupción de otra familia de opioides sintéticos: los nitazenos.

No nos coge del todo por sorpresa. En la década de los 70, el químico Alexander Shulgin ya advertía sobre el potencial abuso de una familia de compuestos conocida como benzimidazoles. Medio siglo después, sus palabras han demostrado ser proféticas: los nitazenos, opioides sintéticos con un núcleo benzimidazol, han emergido como una de las clases de nuevas sustancias psicoactivas más peligrosas, causando un número creciente de intoxicaciones y muertes.

Aunque algunas fuentes hablan de 400 intoxicaciones mortales relacionadas con estas sustancias en Reino Unido, la falta de un método analítico específico en los primeros tiempos de su aparición hace que esta cifra sea simplemente una especulación.

Leer más:
La crisis del fentanilo y por qué sus consumidores parecen zombis

La rápida infiltración de estas sustancias en los mercados de drogas recreativas se debe a su síntesis relativamente sencilla y sin precursores controlados, una elevada potencia (que facilita su transporte), su estado legal inicial y su atractivo económico.

Del laboratorio a la calle

La historia de los nitazenos empieza en los años 1950-1960, cuando la compañía farmacéutica Ciba-Geigy los desarrolló como posibles analgésicos opioides sintéticos. En la investigación sobre dichos opioides, estas moléculas representaron la primera gran desviación de la estructura química característica de la morfina, incluso antes de que Paul Janssen sintetizara el fentanilo en 1960.

Aunque muchos nitazenos mostraron entonces una potencia analgésica superior a la morfina en animales, nunca llegaron a comercializarse como medicamentos, debido al estrecho margen de seguridad que supone una molécula tan potente.

Sin embargo, a partir de 2019, y coincidiendo con las medidas de control contra la producción de fentanilo y análogos en China y Estados Unidos, los análogos nitazénicos irrumpieron en el mercado de las drogas recreativas. El isotonitazeno fue el primero en aparecer, seguido rápidamente por otros como el metonitazeno, el etodesnitazeno y diversos derivados.

Una potencia extraordinaria

La investigación farmacológica ha revelado que muchos nitazenos muestran un efecto excepcional. Aunque se unen y activan selectivamente la misma diana sobre la que actúan el fentanilo y la morfina (receptor Mu), lo hacen con una afinidad 60 veces mayor que el fentanilo. Y lo activan con una potencia bastante mayor.

Tanto es así que algunos análogos son hasta 10 veces más potentes que el fentanilo, o 100 más que la morfina. Esta elevada potencia puede tener implicaciones dramáticas para la salud pública, ya que pequeñísimas cantidades (nanogramos por mililitro) pueden resultar letales.

Drogas que llegan directamente a Europa

Los nitazenos están apareciendo cada vez más en la calle. Las últimas cifras oficiales indican que, hasta 2024, se habían detectado en Asia, Europa, Norteamérica, Oceanía y Sudamérica, siendo Europa la región más afectada hasta el momento. A diferencia del fentanilo, que siguió la ruta México–Estados Unidos, los nitazenos están llegando directamente desde Asia a Europa, mediante canales de distribución más diversos. Y se anticipa una expansión significativa e inminente en el continente europeo.

Además de los diversos efectos en la salud que puede generar su consumo, estas moléculas son especialmente nocivas cuando sustituyen fraudulentamente el principio activo de un medicamento o droga de efectos parecidos sin conocimiento del consumidor.

Así, en enero de este año, LM, de 22 años, murió tras tomar un falso Xanax (alprazolam). Tres meses después, su amigo HC, de 21 años, le siguió tras consumir un falso Percocet (oxicodona). En ambos casos, las pastillas contenían, fundamentalmente, un nitazeno.

La dificultad de revertir las sobredosis

El problema es que no es fácil revertir la sobredosis de estos opiáceos. La naloxona, un medicamento antagonista de los opioides que se usa para revertir y bloquear los efectos de heroína, la morfina y el fentanilo, no es tan efectiva en el caso de los nitazenos.

Estudios recientes sugieren que algunos nitazenos se disocian muy lentamente del receptor Mu, lo que podría suponer que se necesiten dosis mucho más altas de naloxona para revertir estas sobredosis.

Un desafío analítico y forense

La detección de nitazenos presenta múltiples desafíos para la toxicología forense. Estas moléculas no dan positivo en los ensayos rutinarios que existen para detectar morfina, heroína o fentanilo.

Al ser muy potentes y utilizarse concentraciones muy bajas, se requiere un método analítico de alta sensibilidad. Y dado que surgen constantemente muchos derivados de gran similitud estructural, se complica la identificación de una molécula concreta. De ahí que se precise una actualización continua del método analítico.

El juego del gato y el ratón

Hasta marzo de 2025, se habían controlado en el mundo sólo diez nitazenos, aunque varios países empiezan a implementar ya legislaciones específicas. China, el país productor clave, añadió los análogos nitazénicos a su lista de sustancias controladas en julio de 2024. Sin embargo, el control de sustancias específicas a menudo genera la aparición de nuevos análogos no controlados, creando un ciclo continuo.

Cuando se aplican legislaciones genéricas, éstas son más efectivas, ya que permiten fiscalizar un gran número de sustancias estrechamente vinculadas entre sí (análogos químicos) de una sola vez, sin necesidad de nombrarlas individualmente en la legislación. Pero esta medida aumenta el riesgo de impulsar el desarrollo, por parte de los fabricantes, de clases químicas completamente nuevas y desconocidas, que quedan fuera de las medidas de fiscalización genérica.

Necesitamos un enfoque multidisciplinar

La crisis de los nitazenos es un problema complejo, sin soluciones simples. Y ofrece un ejemplo paradigmático de cómo las innovaciones farmacológicas del pasado pueden transformarse en amenazas de salud pública contemporáneas.

La prohibición del cultivo de opio por los talibanes en Afganistán podría acelerar aún más el cambio hacia opioides sintéticos en Europa, haciendo que la situación de los nitazenos se vuelva más crítica. No existe un enfoque único para abordar esta situación polifacética: se requiere una respuesta coordinada, y la colaboración sin precedentes entre químicos, farmacólogos, toxicólogos forenses, profesionales de la salud pública, legisladores y comunidades afectadas.

Sólo el tiempo dirá si la sociedad es capaz de adaptarse con la rapidez necesaria para hacer frente a esta amenaza emergente, o si los nitazenos seguirán el camino de otros opioides sintéticos, provocando graves consecuencia antes de que se implementen medidas de control y prevención eficaces.

Elena Escubedo Rafa no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. Los nitazenos, el peligroso relevo del fentanilo en la crisis de los opioides sintéticos – https://theconversation.com/los-nitazenos-el-peligroso-relevo-del-fentanilo-en-la-crisis-de-los-opioides-sinteticos-264522

September 18, 2025

The Canadian government must take action following future of sport commission

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kyle Rich, Associate Professor of Sport Management, Brock University

We are at a pivotal time for sport in Canada.

In August, Sport Canada released a National Sport Policy to guide sport in the country for the next decade. Through language such as “barrier-free sport” and recognition of “spaces and places” required to participate, the federal government signalled a broader approach to addressing sport participation that will impact more than just the sport clubs that have traditionally delivered sport programs.

Since 2020, a series of high-profile cases of harassment and abuse in hockey, swimming, gymnastics and other sports raised questions about safety. This was epitomized by Hockey Canada’s sexual assault scandal.

In 2023, advocates called on the federal government to launch a public inquiry into sport. Instead, the government chose to investigate through a Future of Sport in Canada Commission.

That commission recently released preliminary findings and recommendations. Importantly, the commission took a broad scope, considering not only abuse and harassment but also the broader structures and politics that shape the Canadian sport delivery system. Last week, the commission held a summit in Ottawa to discuss its findings and recommendations with survivors and stakeholders from across the country.

The decisions made by policymakers in the coming months and years could change the landscape of sport in important ways. But the sport system is shaped by long-standing rules, traditions and organizations that are deeply entrenched, making meaningful change difficult.

Collectively, our research has examined sport policy and governance in different parts of Canada since the formalization of federal sport policy in 2002. Some of us were also consulted by the Future of Sport Commission and participated in the summit.

In our current work, we are mapping the role of provincial and territorial governments in sport policy. Through this work, we’ve observed changes in sport policy across Canada, and we have thought a lot about what works and what doesn’t in different jurisdictions.

Key challenges in sport

a person swimming in a pool — A series of high-profile cases of harassment and abuse in Canadian sports have raised questions about safety.
(Unsplash)

The Future of Sport Commission highlighted some key issues within Canadian sport and made sweeping recommendations. These include a need for a new funding model for sport, alignment of policy across all levels of government, amalgamating sport organizations and the creation of a new centralized sport entity to oversee sport governance.

Many of these, however, have been noted by scholars and advocates for some time. While the goal of changing the sport system for the better is well-intentioned, it will not be an easy task. Here are a few reasons why.

Amateur sport programs and organizations in Canada remain largely volunteer run. These organizations have ingrained social and political practices and low capacity for change. In this context, governments and national and provincial/territorial sport organizations can lay out an amazing suite of policies and programs, but those delivering sport in communities may not take them up.

Simultaneously, public infrastructure for sport is aging, and municipalities and school boards are unable or unwilling to support increased demand. This has a negative impact on sport clubs that rely on this support.

Without meaningful changes to the environments that support clubs, they simply won’t be able to adapt initiatives to create safe environments or more welcoming spaces for new and existing members. In order to improve access to safe and healthy sport participation opportunities, provincial and municipal governments also need to be invested in these policy goals.

A rise of private equity investment is also impacting the Canadian sport landscape. We are in danger of losing youth sport to large commercial conglomerates, which could change how sports are accessed.

While commercial clubs can excel at offering high-performance training experiences, they are costly for participants and can segregate access to training and facilities based on an athlete’s income rather than their talent or potential.

Furthermore, commercial clubs can be unsanctioned and operate outside of established governance systems. If sport continues to be commercialized, it will only be accessible for those who can afford to pay, which will exacerbate existing inequities. And a rise in unsanctioned clubs will prevent attempts to foster safe sport environments through governance reforms from working.

Why change is difficult

As highlighted by the commission, change will be difficult, and requires time, investment and concerted effort. Change is particularly complicated in sport, as organizations at all levels work under the auspices of international organizations that operate with an unusual amount of autonomy.

This means that sport organizations in Canada may be faced with multiple and competing ideas about how they should operate, and what they can afford, now and in the future.

Change will not be easy. It will require buy-in and alignment of policy from all orders of government. Change will be particularly difficult for organizations that are struggling to recruit and retain volunteer coaches and board members. In those cases, it’s easier to focus on the status quo than to change.

Furthermore, public opinion and social norms about sport needs to keep pace with change. Canadians across the country need to think about what they want sport to do for their communities and themselves, and how they want sport to achieve those goals.

The Canadian government has repeatedly used sports imagery like “elbows up” recently in light of tariffs from the United States. Based on the commission’s recommendations, the federal government has an opportunity to show that kind of leadership by investing in change so the sport system works for all Canadians.

Kyle Rich receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Audrey R. Giles receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Jonathon Edwards receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Larena Hoeber receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. The Canadian government must take action following future of sport commission – https://theconversation.com/the-canadian-government-must-take-action-following-future-of-sport-commission-264103

September 18, 2025

From tattoos to plastic bottles, here’s how society assigns moral values to everyday things

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Aya Aboelenien, Associate Professor of Marketing, HEC Montréal

When we think about morality, we usually focus on actions: is this act morally right or wrong? But increasingly, these kinds of debates involve the morality of everyday objects, like plastic bottles, smartphones or even the the food on our plates.

Our research shows that objects themselves can not only carry moral weight, but that these judgments can change over time. Take tattoos, for instance. Have you ever considered if having tattoos is considered moral, immoral or simply amoral?

In our recent research, we demonstrate how mainstream societal sentiments for tattoos have changed throughout history. We conducted a meta-synthesis of existing studies to develop a framework for understanding how moral attributions in markets are shaped.

Our findings show that shared moral sentiments toward objects, products or services are neither fixed nor are universally shared. By “objects,” we mean products and services that people might use, consume or embody due to moral associations, like plastic bags, tattoos, fur clothing or diamond jewellery.

The shifting moral landscape of tattoos

In early societies, tattoos were not stigmatized, but they were used to mark identity, social belonging or spiritual protection. This is still an ongoing sentiment in some cultures, including Kurds, Inuit and some Indigenous groups in the Philippines.

In the 19th century, tattoos started to have divergent moral meanings, including negative ones, depending on the context. For sailors, they were a mark of their sea adventures or the lands they conquered. For people in the periphery of the Global North, they were symbols of non-conformity.

Since then, the moral judgments of tattoos have fluctuated between being seen moral or immoral across time and place. Tattoos were seen as signs of bravery and remembrance for Second World War soldiers, yet in other contexts, they were associated with criminality or gang affiliation.

These changes happen through complex social processes that involve social entities with differing capacities: individuals, groups (like unions or consumer collectives) and organizations (like churches or governments). We call this process “marketplace moralization,” which produces what we call “marketplace moral sentiments.”

Not always black-and-white

Marketplace moral sentiments are not always black-and-white, but also can be in-between, debated and negotiated, such as in the case of meat consumption. While vegans consider it immoral to consume meat, other groups might consider it morally neutral or even necessary for cultural or health reasons.

To understand how these moral debates unfold, we used actor-network-theory — which involves the translation stages of problematization, enrolment, interessement and mobilization — to map the stages of marketplace moralization. In plain terms, these stages include raising an issue, persuading others and organizing support.

If successful, a new collective moral sentiment forms. For example, a new consensus about the necessity of eating animal protein can shift nutrition guidelines to advocate for more plant-based protein.

If unsuccessful, however, the old sentiment remains dominant. This means the object’s moral status remains contested and subject to further negotiation.

Outcomes of marketplace moralization

Our research found marketplace moralization can produce one of four outcomes. Sometimes an object can achieve “harmonized moral sentiment,” where nearly everyone agrees it is moral or immoral. Donating to charity, for example, is widely recognized as morally good. It is supported by your social network, and rewarded by government policies such as tax deductions.

Other times, an object can have a “divided moral sentiment,” with different groups holding opposing views. Some Hummer owners, for instance, moralize the purchase of their vehicles by arguing that it is an expression of individual freedom and rights or that it is a necessity for safer trips, while others condemn them as wasteful or environmentally harmful.

In some cases, moral sentiments are dispersed: a few people may challenge a widely held view but lack broad support. Early critics of bullfighting in Spain, for instance, spoke out against a deeply cherished cultural practice.

Finally, organizations can impose moral views on people through regulations or policies. In this case, individuals and groups are forced to conform even if they privately disagree, such as mask and vaccine mandates during COVID-19.

Why does this matter?

Markets are not just settings for economic exchange; they are also about values and moralized emotions. Large-scale issues like climate change, racism, animal rights or gender equality show how morality and markets are tied together.

Brands often leverage existing moral sentiments by supporting social movements or by promoting eco-friendly products. By doing this, they are also inserting themselves into moralized debates and negotiations.

For example, cosmetics retailer Lush closed its United Kingdom stores on Sept. 3, and shops in the Republic of Ireland on Sept. 4, as a gesture of solidarity with Palestine. The company is also selling watermelon-shaped soap to raise money for medical services in Gaza as part of its Giving Products collection.

More recently, concerns about environmental, cognitive and other ethical issues surrounding generative artificial intelligence have prompted criticism of companies seeking to integrate AI into their products or processes.

These examples illustrate why it is crucial to understand the fluidity of moral judgments about objects, rather than assuming objects have inherent or immutable moral value.

For individuals, this understanding can help contextualize moral disputes and allow them to see that disagreements over objects are not always rooted in absolute moral truths, but often in differing cultural, social and historical perspectives.

For managers and business leaders, it allows a more deliberate application of moral claims — like sustainable, green or cruelty-free — to their products or services while contextualizing them.

And lastly, for policymakers, it allows them to create better policies by monitoring public sentiments on complex issues such as gun ownership, food policy and technology.

Aya Aboelenien receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.

Zeynep Arsel receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)

– ref. From tattoos to plastic bottles, here’s how society assigns moral values to everyday things – https://theconversation.com/from-tattoos-to-plastic-bottles-heres-how-society-assigns-moral-values-to-everyday-things-264657

September 18, 2025

Rapport sur l’avenir de l’audiovisuel québécois : un bon point de départ, en attendant une métamorphose en profondeur du milieu

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Catalina Briceno, Professeure, École des médias de l’UQAM, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

Reconduit à la Culture et aux Communications le 10 septembre, le ministre Mathieu Lacombe se retrouve aussitôt face à un dossier urgent : le rapport Souffler les braises, qui lui a été remis cinq jours plus tôt par le Groupe de travail sur l’avenir de l’audiovisuel québécois (GTAAQ).

Co-présidé par Monique Simard (productrice, ex-présidente de la SODEC) et Philippe Lamarre (fondateur d’Urbania), ce groupe rassemblait aussi quatre personnes issues de la production, de la diffusion et de la création audiovisuelle. En plus de 200 pages, le rapport formule 20 recommandations et 76 mesures regroupées sous six lignes directrices : renforcer les institutions publiques, mieux arrimer éducation et culture, reconquérir le public, stimuler l’exportation, accélérer la transition numérique et encourager la concertation sectorielle.

Bien en amont de la rédaction du rapport par le groupe de travail, j’ai encadré à l’UQAM l’équipe chargée du dépouillement des études et synthèses des mémoires. Mon commentaire s’appuie sur ce travail, sur mon expérience d’analyste du secteur de l’audiovisuel et sur ma pratique en prospective.

Dépasser la connaissance ancienne des enjeux

Il importe d’abord de rappeler que les problèmes structurels de l’audiovisuel québécois ne sont pas nouveaux. Depuis au moins une décennie, chercheurs, experts et praticiens identifient les fragilités qui pèsent sur l’industrie : déclin des ressources financières, transfert des écoutes vers le « tout-numérique », dépendance grandissante aux plates-formes étrangères, difficultés de mise en valeur des contenus locaux, fragmentation des publics et déficit de littératie numérique.

De ce point de vue, le rapport révèle peu de choses nouvelles, mais a le grand mérite de remettre à l’avant-plan les manques connus et des pistes de solutions souvent ignorées.

Souffler les braises arrive donc in extremis : alors que le secteur paye le prix d’années de négligence et de demi-mesures face aux mutations mondiales des industries de la création.

Tension entre inventaire et invention

L’exhaustivité et la profondeur du rapport, qui compile l’essentiel de 114 mémoires déposés, d’une trentaine d’études dépouillées et de centaines d’heures de rencontres, sont remarquables. C’est aussi ce qui en fait un document consensuel, accueilli avec enthousiasme par le milieu.

Déjà des milliers d’abonnés à l’infolettre de La Conversation. Et vous ? Abonnez-vous gratuitement à notre infolettre pour mieux comprendre les grands enjeux contemporains.

Toutefois, cette même exhaustivité fait courir un risque de dilution des priorités : chacun peut y trouver une mesure favorable à ses intérêts, fournissant de quoi alimenter les agendas particuliers. C’est aussi ce qui rend la longue liste de recommandations vulnérable aux changements de gouvernement, à l’influence des lobbys et aux priorités politiques changeantes.

C’est là que se révèle la tension fondamentale qui traverse l’exercice : d’un côté, le rapport joue un rôle stabilisateur en apportant un inventaire de solutions pragmatiques et attendues à court terme. De l’autre, il laisse en suspens la nécessité de redessiner en profondeur le modèle de l’audiovisuel québécois pour se préparer aux prochaines mutations de l’économie numérique des contenus.

Une question centrale à approfondir

À travers cette tension, le rapport pose néanmoins une interrogation qui mérite toute notre attention : souhaitons-nous être propriétaires de notre culture, ou rester sous-traitants et consommateurs invisibles des grandes industries culturelles étrangères ?

Le rapport privilégie clairement la première option : une stratégie de souveraineté culturelle, présentée comme urgente et un devoir envers les futures générations.

Le rapport avance certaines pistes pour renforcer cet engagement envers la jeunesse : ouverture de studios de création et développement de marques à Télé-Québec, augmentation des budgets d’investissement en jeunesse, élargissement des genres admissibles à la SODEC. Il n’en reste pas moins que ces mesures demeurent enchâssées dans un système qui, jusqu’ici, n’a pas su renouveler ce « lien affectif » avec les nouvelles générations d’auditoires.

Et si « parler aux jeunes », c’était justement d’ouvrir la voie à l’invention de modèles inédits, au-delà de ce qui paraît aujourd’hui possible ?

Éviter le blocage structurel

En éclairant ce qui est déjà visible, mais peinant à préparer ce qui est encore à venir, le rapport touche à sa limite la plus importante : celle du maintien d’un statu quo structurel. Si des ajustements opérationnels et des réaménagements significatifs sont proposés, les fondements de l’architecture institutionnelle et économique du modèle audiovisuel québécois, ainsi que les logiques de gouvernance qui organisent rôles, pouvoirs et privilèges au sein de la chaîne de valeur, demeurent largement inchangés.

L’avenir de l’audiovisuel québécois ne pourra pas se jouer sur la seule capacité à répondre aux crises présentes (et permanentes) du secteur, mais sur l’audace de concevoir collectivement des futurs désirables, au-delà de la seule préservation du modèle existant. Mais cela suppose de créer un espace commun de réflexion et de coconstruction, où puisse se déployer une véritable pensée du devenir.

Le rapport Souffler les braises offre l’occasion d’amorcer ce momentum et d’engager le travail.

Une méthodologie à interroger

La démarche du groupe de travail reposait sur une vaste consultation des personnes travaillant dans le secteur qui, logiquement, ont exprimé des préoccupations liées à leur quotidien et aux menaces immédiates qui pèsent sur leur pratique. Une méthode classique, mais qui enferme le rapport dans un rôle de compromis destiné à rassurer les multiples segments de l’industrie.

Tout le monde a été entendu. La prochaine étape appartient maintenant à l’industrie. Transformer les recommandations en résultats exige de concentrer les efforts sur quelques fronts communs. Le rapport le souligne clairement dans sa conclusion : il faut apprendre à avancer ensemble, mais surtout dans la même direction. Or, viser des résultats différents suppose d’abord de changer nos façons de faire : développer des compétences collectives capables d’anticiper les ruptures, d’explorer des futurs multiples et de renforcer la capacité d’adaptation continue de l’écosystème.

Se réinventer exigera également d’élargir le cercle. Sur plus d’une centaine de mémoires, un seul provenait d’un autre secteur que l’audiovisuel. Les prochaines étapes gagneraient à mobiliser plus largement : population, autres filières culturelles, universités et milieux d’affaires. C’est à cette condition que le Québec pourra dépasser une posture défensive et s’engager dans une véritable coconstruction, afin d’imaginer et de bâtir collectivement les futurs de ses industries créatives.

Pour faire long feu…

Sous cet éclairage, le rapport Souffler les braises doit être compris non comme un aboutissement, mais comme un point de départ. Il propose un ensemble de mesures stabilisatrices susceptibles d’atténuer les tensions actuelles. Cet apaisement au sein de l’industrie audiovisuelle est nécessaire et désiré. Ça ne saurait cependant se substituer à une refonte en profondeur des systèmes qui régissent actuellement ce secteur.

En définitive, le défi n’est pas seulement de préserver l’existant, mais de cultiver une capacité collective à se projeter dans ce qui nous apparaît souhaitable. Pour ce faire, il faut développer une imagination institutionnelle et politique à la hauteur des transformations sociales, culturelles, climatiques et technologiques qui s’annoncent.

C’est important, parce que quiconque a déjà soufflé sur des braises sait qu’on peut augmenter temporairement leur incandescence. Mais que sans l’ajout de bois nouveau, le feu ne reprend pas longtemps.

Catalina Briceno a reçu un financement de recherche partenariale de la part du Ministère de la culture et des communications dans le cadre de la revue de littérature destinée au groupe d’experts sur l’avenir de l’audiovisuel.

– ref. Rapport sur l’avenir de l’audiovisuel québécois : un bon point de départ, en attendant une métamorphose en profondeur du milieu – https://theconversation.com/rapport-sur-lavenir-de-laudiovisuel-quebecois-un-bon-point-de-depart-en-attendant-une-metamorphose-en-profondeur-du-milieu-264943

September 18, 2025

Uganda has signed a deal with the US to take asylum seekers – what’s behind it and what’s at stake

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Franzisca Zanker, Senior researcher, Arnold Bergstraesser Institute

A new deal to deport asylum seekers from the US to Uganda was announced in August 2025. The full agreement, already signed by the ambassadors of the two countries at the end of July, set out the terms of the arrangements. Franzisca Zanker and Ronald Kalyango Sebba, who have studied refugee and migration policy in Uganda, unpack its significance.

What deal has Uganda signed with Washington on taking refugees?

Uganda has agreed to take on an unspecified number of third-country nationals who have a pending asylum claim in the US but cannot return home due to safety concerns. In other words, these are people who should likely be protected as refugees, but are no longer wanted in Donald Trump’s America.

Uganda is set to receive development funds in return. It also retains discretion on a case-by-case basis.

According to the official Ugandan statement, the deal, which entered into force with its signing on 29 July 2025, does not include people with a criminal background or unaccompanied minors. The written agreement, however, only mentions minors.

Once in Uganda, each person will go through individual refugee status determination processes.

How does this deal compare with others the US has reached on the continent?

It follows similar bilateral agreements with other African countries from recent weeks. For instance, eight people with a criminal background were deported in July to South Sudan. Five similar cases were deported to Eswatini. In mid-September, Ghana became the latest African country to crumble, taking in 14 deported migrants from the US.

A final example, Rwanda, has a long history of similar agreements. These agreements have usually been accompanied by much fanfare and followed by little in the way of receiving of actual refugees. Most recently Rwanda agreed to take in 250 people from the US. The first seven arrived in late August.

What are the issues with these arrangements?

The US is not alone in its attempts to send asylum seekers to countries in Africa.

Plans – with varying levels of concreteness – have been thrown around by politicians from the UK, Denmark and Germany.

Migration is being demonised by politicians all over the world. So externalising, which basically means moving the location of the problem, may seem like a solution.

But African countries have not always received such offers with open arms. While global asymmetries and aid dependencies mean that African officials may not overtly reject such deal attempts, countries are not keen to take on any deportees, let alone from third countries.

In fact, there is no international convention that provides a legal instrument for deporting people from another nationality to a different country. International agreements, most recently the Samoa Agreement between the European Union and Africa, Caribbean and Pacific states, have removed the potential to deport third nationals.

Deporting nationals from other countries to African countries is, therefore, legally questionable – and diplomatically unpopular. The African Union has condemned such arrangements as “xenophobic and completely unacceptable”.

What’s in it for Uganda?

The deal provides the groundwork for much-needed improvements in bilateral US-Ugandan relationship.

In response to the globally condemned 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act, the Joe Biden administration terminated Uganda’s eligibility for US trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. This policy gave Uganda duty-free access to the American market for a variety of goods.

More recently under the Trump administration, Uganda has suffered the effect of US funding cuts. This includes the loss of an estimated 66% of funding following cuts to the USAID development assistance programme. Uganda also faces a higher tariff of 15%, up from the previously announced 10% that will affect the cost of its agricultural products in the US market. This could potentially lower its sales in a key export market.

While the details of the US-Uganda asylum deal are shrouded in secrecy, as is common with such agreements it could provide Uganda with much needed development funds and lead to better tariff conditions.

Domestically, opposition politicians have criticised the new bilateral deal. However, Museveni has not shown much concern for these misgivings. Uganda is one of the few countries where refugees have not become a major political issue.

However, this may change. Attitudes towards migrants are slowly changing at a societal and political level.

As refugee numbers rise, conflicts between them and host communities over land and environmental damage are increasing. There is growing public apprehension about the government’s open-door policy.

What is Uganda’s history when it comes to refugees?

Uganda has a long history of refugee protection. It currently hosts 1.8 million refugees and asylum seekers, mainly from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The country has a reputation as one of the most generous places towards refugees. Most people entering Uganda are given automatic refugee status. This was set up in the 1969 refugee convention from the then Organisation of African Unity.

The government provides refugees with a plot of land to farm. They have free access to schools and healthcare, and can work. As refugee numbers grow, however, the plots of land are getting smaller.

In practice, refugees are confined to dusty so-called refugee settlements, with few working and educational possibilities. Many refugees – just like the Ugandan host community – live under very high levels of poverty.

Some refugees have to go through individual refugee status determination processes where they face huge backlogs and access to justice issues.

Will the refugees from Washington get the same treatment?

We do not know at this stage. However, in August 2021, Uganda agreed to take on up to 2,000 refugees from Afghanistan on behalf of the US. While this was deemed only a temporary move before they were resettled elsewhere, many remain in Uganda to this day.

At the time, the Ugandan foreign minister wrote in an op-ed

our friend, partner and longstanding ally – the US – asked for our support …. when the US asks for our help and we are able to give it, we do.

In the same piece he also noted

Ugandans say refugees are our brothers and sisters. That is why our door will always be open to them.

What this means for the US deportees is unknown.

The agreement reveals no details about their temporary housing or refugee status determination process. Whether they will be sent to the remote settlements where most refugees in Uganda access free housing and humanitarian assistance, or stay in urban Kampala, remains to be determined.

With elections in Uganda scheduled for January 2026, such a deal certainly helps President Yoweri Museveni preempt any US criticism regarding electoral freedom. But it also raises deeper questions about the long-term effects of open-door policies.

Franzisca Zanker receives funding from the European Research Council for the project “The Political Lives of Migrants: Perspectives from Africa” (Grant no: 101161856).

Ronald Kalyango Sebba is affiliated with Kyambogo University, Kampala Uganda.

– ref. Uganda has signed a deal with the US to take asylum seekers – what’s behind it and what’s at stake – https://theconversation.com/uganda-has-signed-a-deal-with-the-us-to-take-asylum-seekers-whats-behind-it-and-whats-at-stake-265545

September 18, 2025

Imagine a world without genocide

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By David Welch, Professor, Political Science; Research Chair, University of Waterloo

An independent international commission of inquiry appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council has released a report saying that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, immediately dismissed the report for “promot[ing] a narrative serving Hamas and its supporters in attempting to delegitimize and demonize the state of Israel.” The report, he said, “falsely accuses Israel of genocidal intent, an allegation it cannot substantiate.”

Let’s imagine that there was no such thing as the legal definition of the crime of genocide. What would be left of the report? A gruesome, horrifying, utterly damning catalogue of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.

According to the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide:

“Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

The prohibition of genocide is what is known in public international law as a peremptory (jus cogens) norm, meaning that it allows for no exceptions. It is one of a handful of jus cogens norms that include prohibitions on slavery, torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity. These are the worst of the worst, legally speaking, none lesser or greater than another.

How genocide is distinct

The crime of genocide stands out from other jus cogens violations in two ways, however — one legal and one sociological.

The legal difference is that genocide is the only jus cogens violation that requires proof of intent (mens rea, “guilty mind”). All the rest require nothing more than proof of a deed (actus reus, “guilty act”).

The sociological difference is that public opinion has come to regard genocide as somehow particularly important. If a state commits atrocities, it is for some reason unsatisfying today to call them crimes against humanity. There is seemingly a palpable urge to label it genocide.

In addition, the public understanding of genocide is much less restrictive than the legal one. The public feels that intent can be presumed and need not be proven, and that members of almost any group can qualify as victims. Sexual and gender minorities are not a protected group under the 1948 convention, for example, and yet it is not unusual to hear about the “genocide of gay people.”

Inviting quibbles and deflection

The UN report will be welcomed by all who understand Israel as guilty of the sociological version of the crime of genocide, because it concludes that Israel is also guilty of the legal version.

But a careful reading of the report will show that it often leaps to conclusions about intentions, drawing from statements or actions that might actually have explanations other than genuinely genocidal intent.

Alternative possible explanations the report does not entertain include overly emotional language or rhetorical hyperbole by Israeli leaders in the immediate wake of Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023; actions undertaken in the fog of war; a misplaced sense of military necessity; or even callous or reckless indifference to Palestinian suffering.

Such explanations, if true, would not be excuses. But they are not the same as an intention to destroy the Palestinian people.

Does this mean that the report is wrong to conclude that Israel is guilty of the legal crime of genocide? Not necessarily. It means only that it left room to quibble and deflect attention from unquestionable crimes.

It also gave Meron an opportunity to try to change the channel and make the conversation about “a narrative serving Hamas” or an attempt to “delegitimize and demonize the state of Israel,” rather than children starving or being shot in the head.

A high bar

None of this would be the case if the crime of genocide had not been defined so narrowly in the first place.

To some extent, its narrowness was the result of its inspiration. The evidence of genocidal intent was clear and overwhelming in Nazi Germany. One reason why there have been so few convictions is that the specific case of the Holocaust both spurred the definition of the crime and set the evidentiary bar so high.

However, its narrowness is also the result of political manoeuvring during the negotiation of the convention itself.

Was there any good reason why sexual orientation or gender identity were not included as protected categories? None whatsoever, unless you just so happened to be a state that wanted to be left in peace to persecute sexual and gender minorities.

Why was the convention silent on cultural genocide, or on forced relocations of Indigenous Peoples to reservations? Perhaps because certain powerful countries had embarrassing histories that they did not want to see criminalized.

Conduct vs. intent

Perhaps the biggest error was insisting upon “intent to destroy.” Why not simply go with targeting, or disproportionately impacting, members of a particular group?

As the UN report demonstrates, it’s easy to show conduct (actus reus), but typically very difficult to prove intent (mens rea). Removing intent would have made genocide a subset of crimes against humanity rather than a separate crime. But so what?

Ultimately, none of this should matter. We should not need the word “genocide” to galvanize action to stop the horrors unfolding in Gaza. They are crimes enough in and of themselves — as were the horrors in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and so many other places — and they should be the sole focus of our attention.

David Welch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Imagine a world without genocide – https://theconversation.com/imagine-a-world-without-genocide-265535

September 18, 2025

Children’s best interests should anchor Canada’s approach to their online privacy

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By David Philpott, Professor, Special Education, Memorial University of Newfoundland

In 2025, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence access for the public at large also means growing concern about the mental health impact of screen time on children and their AI engagement.

Concerns encompass the harvesting of children’s personal data and children’s and teens’ vulnerability in dialogue with AI chatbots — some now in cuddly stuffed animals.

There are also risks that the promise of AI for learning and companionship could deprive children of the essential human relationships and hands-on play experiences that are foundational for their well-being and cognitive development.

AI is entering classrooms quickly, whether through children’s own AI use or lesson plans. The New York Times recently reported on an AI school in Texas that replaced teachers with “guides,” and AI-led lessons. Many apps, meanwhile, promise to diagnose, assess and “optimize” children’s learning.

As a researcher with expertise in how early education shapes children’s learning and developmental trajectories, and a retired practising psychotherapist, I amplify educator calls for caution. We need to regulate technologies and safeguard children’s privacy, especially considering the rapid rate that children adapt to technology.

72 million data points by age 13

In the transition back to fall routines, educators and parents concerned with the benefits of children’s active outdoor play for their well-being struggle to balance such play with the return to more sedentary and online routines.

A recent Organization for Economic Development Report entitled “How’s Life for Children in the Digital Age?” outlines the importance of a “four-pillar” approach to enhancing child well-being that involves parents and guardians, a legal and policy framework, teachers and schools and the voices of children themselves.

Concern over children’s mental health in the digital world is hardly new. Advocacy groups such as FairPlay for Kids and their 5 Rights Foundation have long pushed for stronger monitoring and regulation, urging tech companies to put children’s needs ahead of corporate profit.

They have amassed “overwhelming evidence” that child-targeted marketing, and the excessive screen time it fuels, undermines healthy development. By the time a child turns 13, technology companies may have already amassed up to 72 million data points on them — and there is virtually no regulation governing how that information is used.

OECD data shows that 70 per cent of 10-year-olds in developed countries own a smartphone, and by age 15, at least half of them spend 30 or more hours a week on their devices.

Called “persuasive design,” techniques like infinite scroll, autoplay, intermittent rewards and eye-catching design are used to hook children and keep them glued to screens, reshaping childhood.

From cognitive off-loading to emotional mining

AI, with its growing ability to “think” for us, is accelerating cognitive off-loading, outsourcing mental effort to machines. For young children whose neural pathways for reasoning are still forming, this is especially troubling. If for adults this sounds abstract, ask yourself how many phone numbers you can remember without your device.

What researchers call “emotional AI” goes even further, mining facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, text sentiment and even heart rate to engage children more deeply. The technology is increasingly built into smart toys, wearables and, perhaps most concerning, AI chatbots that children or teens turn to for comfort.

The stakes are high: without deliberate safeguards, we risk not just outsourcing children’s memory and reasoning, but compromising their opportunities to develop empathy and emotional resilience.

Policymakers’ lag on digital regulation

Researchers are increasingly recognizing the risk to student mental health, and there are growing calls for stronger oversight and regulation. In law, and with regulation and guidance in schools and in the home, student mental health and privacy protection should be prioritized.

But policy experts note regulatory efforts in Canada related to youth and data exploitation are wanting.

The Liberal government’s proposed Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, died with Parliament’s prorogation in 2025, and with it the promise of a Digital Safety Commission with the power to audit and penalize companies.

Calls have grown for the federal government to revisit the act again.

Privacy commissioner consultations

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada recently held consultations on the need for Canada to follow international trends in digital regulation, with the consultation window closing in mid-August.

Forty-one leading civil organizations, academic institutions and experts endorsed a joint statement outlining 15 principles for effective oversight, inspired by the United Kingdom’s age-appropriate design code. The top principle: the best interests of the child.

Some voices of children

But never underestimate a child. When social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, and a team of researchers collaborated on a Harris Poll of more than 500 children between the ages of eight and 12 in the United States, they found something striking.

While most children said they weren’t allowed out in public alone, and more than half had never walked down a grocery aisle unaccompanied or used a sharp knife, their online use was remarkably unsupervised.

But when asked how they prefer to spend their leisure time, only a quarter mentioned their devices, favouring free play with their friends. Eighty-seven per cent of surveyed children said they wished they could spend more time with their friends in person outside of school.

Parents and educators are navigating a world where screens, algorithms and AI companions compete for children’s attention and shape their development.

In this context, the humble call from kids for more unstructured play with friends is not nostalgia; it’s a health intervention. Protecting that space may do more to safeguard their cognitive and emotional growth than any app, program or device ever could.

David Philpott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Children’s best interests should anchor Canada’s approach to their online privacy – https://theconversation.com/childrens-best-interests-should-anchor-canadas-approach-to-their-online-privacy-264963

September 18, 2025

Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera turns her prayers into paintings

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Assistant Professor, Harvard University

At the Boston waterfront sits the Institute of Contemporary Art, an architectural marvel that gleams against the harbour in a wealthy neighbourhood. My Uber driver, an African immigrant, remarks as I get out: “Be careful, this is an expensive area.” His comment hints at the subtle tensions of race and class in such affluent spaces, where one’s presence as an outsider is immediately registered. I assure him I’ve just come to see the art.

I’d come to see Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera’s first solo museum show in the US, Hidden Battles/Hondo Dzakavanzika. This exhibition is a landmark moment of recognition for one of southern Africa’s leading contemporary artists.

When most artists are grappling with history and archives, Zvavahera is focused on the dreams she has in her sleep, not as a retreat from the past or the urgency of the now, but as a parallel form of knowledge.

As a scholar of African literary histories and archives and how they intersect with visual culture, I find Zvavahera’s work particularly powerful. It uncovers layers of meaning that operate at the subconscious, where personal memory, cultural narratives, and the imagination intersect.

From an archival perspective, the exhibition is compelling because it frames these dreamscapes with materiality – paint, paper, canvas, brushstrokes – making each a document of emotional and cultural knowledge.

Zvavahera engages deeply with the traditional spirituality and African Pentecostal beliefs in which she was raised. She illuminates spirits and revelations. But she alters these dreams with emancipatory gestures: drawing in bodily features, concealing them as they morph into animal-like figures or plants. When looking closely, it’s as if the canvas was cut then sutured back with careful stitches, with each move a restoration of dignity. This is the delicacy of her brushstrokes.

The Boston gallery positions itself as a site for amplifying singular global voices in art, like Zvavahera’s. Her refusal to translate dreams into rational explanation is central to her practice. Boston audiences encounter Zimbabwean perspectives not as illustrative or ethnographic, but as intellectually and aesthetically complex. Zvavahera is placed within transnational conversations while her particular lived experiences are preserved.

The work on the show was made between 2021 and 2025, a time filled with mourning and melancholy, during and after the COVID pandemic. Zvavahera is a prophet who uses the canvas to transform dark dreams into vivid, colourful prayers. She says:

People say their prayers with words, and I’m saying my prayers with a painting.

Who is Portia Zvavahera?

Born in Harare in 1985, Zvavahera channels childhood experiences, ancestral presence, and mystical narratives into her paintings. The work blurs the line between the figurative and the abstract.

Growing up in Harare’s art scene, both modernist and indigenous art inspired her practice. She found mentorship and support from Gallery Delta and formal training from the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.

Her work has earned awards and international acclaim for its emotive force and poetic intensity.

The exhibition

Zvavahera’s canvases are layered with pigment and texture, incorporating printmaking techniques alongside stencilling, delicate lace, batik wax, and even palm fronds from her garden.

The dream paintings on show are all vast in scale, almost overwhelming in their presence. They appear as recurring visions, or fragments from a psyche as troubled as it is fertile.

The imagery conjures a world of vulnerability. Spectres in her dreams besiege her and try to snatch her children, harm her body, make her grandmother sick, unsettle her spirit. But she does not succumb. Instead, she renders them into haunting paintings and drawings, binding them into linen, oil and ink.

Their titles draw from Shona proverbs and folktales. Kurwira vana (fighting for the children). Tinosvetuka rusvingo (jumping over the wall). Hondo yakatarisana naambuya (the battle that grandmother is facing). They aren’t simply explanatory notes but portals, resisting simplification, pulling the viewer into the language of a cosmology not easily domesticated by English.

Zvavahera is an artist of scale, but also of duration. The canvases demand that viewers linger. To stand before the work is to enter a meditative space, one where line and colour pulse with life. In one caption she writes:

I know there’s going to be a battle in the future when I see a bull in my dreams.

The bull, like the angelic and demonic figures in her work, are not allegory but omen, a herald of struggle. This is the artist’s autobiography in colour.

What haunts is not only the possibility of harm, but also the persistence of love. Viewers witness the artist’s insistent refusal to let her children, her spirit, her imagination, be taken over. To dream is to fight; to paint is to protect. Her canvases stage encounters between the forces of good and evil, and transform them into visions of resilience.

Running through this series is a mystical or magical impulse that is especially vivid in her characters. Her paintings and drawings develop a kind of surrealist mystic experience.

Zvavahera’s work matters because it demonstrates how art can navigate the intimate and the ancestral, the personal and the collective. It offers a worldview that’s too often marginalised in art world conversations. She brings to the fore the depth of the African imagination.

Her show is testament to the fact that African artists are not only present on the global art stage, they’re also helping shape the questions, forms and languages of art itself.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Zimbabwean artist Portia Zvavahera turns her prayers into paintings – https://theconversation.com/zimbabwean-artist-portia-zvavahera-turns-her-prayers-into-paintings-265213

September 18, 2025

Travel as activism: 6 stories of Black women who refused to ‘stay put’ in apartheid South Africa

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Janet Remmington, Research Associate, Humanities Research Centre (and African Literature Department, University of the Witwatersrand), University of York

For black people living in South Africa during apartheid, simply moving around the country was a fraught activity, let alone crossing its borders. This was especially the case for black women, who were “rock bottom of the racial pile”, as South African writer Lauretta Ngcobo expressed it.

Coming to power in 1948 and ruling for over 40 years before democracy in 1994, the white-minority apartheid government took various race-based policies to extremes. An emphasis was on trying to control movement, keeping the black majority “in their place”.

From the 1950s, the state extended pass laws, targeting black women. It also complicated overseas travel with extra bureaucratic and financial burdens.

Mobility restrictions caused an outcry, especially among the growing body of black working women in industrialising cities and towns. These women connected their everyday challenges with broader sociopolitical issues. They injected new energy and forms of activism into organisations involved in the liberation struggle, including the African National Congress (ANC).

In a recent study, I explore the stories of black women who refused to stay put in the face of apartheid’s controls. For these women, mobility was a powerful form of anti-apartheid resistance – and of self-assertion.

I highlight how in 1954, a number of these women, working across race lines, founded the Federation of South African Women (Fedsaw) and drafted the Women’s Charter. The pioneering document laid groundwork for the broader Freedom Charter, which enshrined ideas on freedoms of movement and thought:

All shall be free to travel without restriction from countryside to town, from province to province, and from South Africa abroad.

Even though these ideals would only be realised much later, these activist women broke apartheid’s rules by travelling, exchanging ideas and making connections across borders.

The activist-traveller

These women’s high-risk journeys struck me as being characteristic of what journalist and scholar Mahvish Ahmad describes as a musāfir: an activist-traveller in a politically hostile environment who breaks new ground for others so they may be free.

The mobile black women workers I have been researching have not previously been brought into view as travellers with things to say about their journeys and movements. Their travel texts are diverse, many available only in archives. They include speeches, commentaries, handwritten accounts, interviews, letters and memoirs. Some memoirs were officially published, but outside the country.

Their outputs were not the products of high education or stylised writing, but produced in the intensity of the times by working women.

Elizabeth Mafekeng

When Elizabeth Mafekeng, president of the Food and Canning Workers’ Association, was denied a passport in 1955, she boarded a plane in disguise as a domestic helper. That’s how determined she was to get to the World Conference of Workers in Bulgaria. She also took in Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and China, commenting in the press that she “saw the way people should live in the world” where race was not pronounced.

Returning to South Africa, she was punished for her transgressive travel. She became the first woman sentenced to political banishment by the apartheid state. Again she took mobility into her own hands, fleeing with her two-month-old baby to then Basotholand (today’s Lesotho).

Lilian Ngoyi and Dora Tamana

Lilian Ngoyi, leader of the Garment Workers Union and president of the ANC’s Women’s League, travelled to Switzerland, London, Berlin, the Soviet Union, China and Mongolia in 1955.

Ngoyi and Dora Tamana first tried to board a ship under “European names”, only to be arrested. On a second attempt, they succeeded by air using affidavits and a raft of explanations, eventually arriving in London after stopovers in Uganda, Italy and the Netherlands. Their destination was the World Congress of Mothers in Switzerland on behalf of Fedsaw. There they forged powerful solidarity networks.

Tamana reflected in a letter:

When I saw all these things, different nations together, my eyes were opened and I said, I have tasted the new world and won the confidence of our future.

On return, Ngoyi and Tamana played leading roles in the 20,000-strong 1956 women’s anti-pass march to parliament.

Frances Baard

Frances Baard was a domestic worker turned union organiser who presented the Women’s March petition to the apartheid state.

She travelled around South Africa extensively despite police harassment. Her organising work connected domestic workers, factory workers and other exploited labourers, for which she was imprisoned and banished. In her memoir, she spoke of the mind’s ability to travel:

Even though they ban me … my spirit is still there … free.

Florence Mophosho

My research includes those who travelled into exile like Florence Mophosho.

She was one of the few exiled women leaders of the ANC in the 1960s, based for years in Tanzania and travelling far and wide for the Women’s Secretariat. She stressed that travel was vital to advance the work of political freedom as well as global women’s emancipation. This wasn’t always appreciated by male colleagues.

Emma Mashinini

The apartheid government loosened some mobility restrictions in the 1980s. But this didn’t mean moving around was free or unencumbered. Emma Mashinini, who led the Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union, undertook “a hundred and one travels” within and beyond South Africa to progress freedom for her people.

In 1981, Mashinini was thrown into solitary confinement for six months. In the eyes of the state, she had “overreached” as a black woman traveller-organiser. She insisted in her memoir that it was her country and she intended to come and go.

Moving to be free

Understanding this travel and writing history helps shine new light on (often unsung) black women trade unionists and organisational leaders as anti-apartheid movers and shakers.

Insisting on mobility came at great personal cost, but in a sense these women never went alone. They travelled to gain ground for the greater cause of freedom, while discovering new versions of themselves along the way.

Janet Remmington does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Travel as activism: 6 stories of Black women who refused to ‘stay put’ in apartheid South Africa – https://theconversation.com/travel-as-activism-6-stories-of-black-women-who-refused-to-stay-put-in-apartheid-south-africa-263854