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November 4, 2025

Ce que les statues coloniales dans l’espace public racontent de la France

Source: The Conversation – France in French (3) – By Bertrand Tillier, Professeur d’histoire des patrimoines, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

Que faire des statues coloniales dans l’espace public ? Y ajouter une plaque, discrète et rarement lue ? Les déboulonner, au risque de ne laisser qu’un vide qui n’aide guère à penser l’histoire ? À Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle), une œuvre collective, imaginée par Dorothée-Myriam Kellou pour le musée des Beaux-Arts, sera inaugurée le 6 novembre 2025.

Située face à la statue du sergent Blandan, figure de la conquête française de l’Algérie, cette Table de désorientation, invite le passant à interroger l’impensé colonial. Les contre-monuments de ce type offrent-ils une réponse pertinente ? Pour répondre à cette question, il est indispensable de saisir ce qu’ont représenté les statues coloniales.

Durant un siècle – posons des dates butoirs, puisqu’il le faut bien, même si elles pourraient être assouplies –, c’est-à-dire de la conquête de l’Algérie inaugurée en 1830 à la fastueuse célébration de son centenaire, la France fit ériger en métropole et sur le sol des territoires conquis (principalement sur le continent africain) un petit millier de statues monumentales figuratives. Ainsi distribuée dans l’espace physique et social, la statuaire publique peut être considérée comme un panthéon déconcentré et diffracté, déployé à l’échelle d’une nation et de son empire colonial.

Dans les Damnés de la terre, Frantz Fanon en a esquissé une typologie comprenant le militaire « qui a fait la conquête » (Blandan, Bugeaud, Faidherbe ou Lyautey) et « l’ingénieur qui a construit le pont » (Lesseps) : conquérir et bâtir étant des modalités complémentaires d’appropriation d’un territoire. À ces deux figures tutélaires, on peut en ajouter d’autres qui en sont comme des inflexions ou des extensions : l’aventurier érigé en explorateur et « découvreur » (Francis Garnier ou le sergent Bobillot en Indochine) ; l’administrateur civil, politique ou militaire (Joseph Galliéni en Afrique et en Asie, Joseph Gabard au Sénégal ou Jérôme Bertagna en Algérie et en Tunisie) ; le bienfaiteur, propriétaire foncier ou industriel (Borély de la Sapie en Algérie) ; l’homme d’Église occupé à convertir les populations autochtones (le cardinal Lavigerie en Algérie) ; le scientifique qui domine par le savoir (Paul Bert et Louis Pasteur en Indochine) et le créateur, artiste ou auteur (le peintre Gustave Guillaumet ou l’écrivain Pierre Loti), soucieux de valoriser les paysages, la culture, le pittoresque par son œuvre et par le rayonnement de celle-ci.

En louant ces figures, la statuaire publique procéda donc d’une double affirmation : celle des vertus de la colonisation et celle des mérites individuels de ses artisans les plus illustres.

Ces figures statufiées avaient vocation à symboliser et à signifier la colonisation à destination de la société française, qui devait s’enorgueillir de l’œuvre accomplie, et à celle des populations colonisées, qu’il fallait acculturer aux valeurs occidentales. On touche là à l’imaginaire du pouvoir performatif qu’on prêtait à la statuaire publique, dans un siècle à la fois statuomaniaque et statuophobe.

Une statue, deux lectures

Quand elle s’adressait aux Occidentaux, la statue monumentale proposait un héros, un destin exemplaire, un modèle de grandeur, un sujet d’admiration auquel on donnait un visage, un corps, une attitude et un récit ayant une valeur didactique citoyenne, puisque dans les territoires colonisés, les colons jouissaient pleinement de leurs droits civiques, à la différence des « indigènes » qui n’en avaient aucun.

En revanche, quand elle était destinée aux populations colonisées, la statue agissait moins dans cette économie exemplaire de la grandeur à imiter que dans la perspective d’une gestion de la force et même d’une affirmation de la terreur.

Une même statue était donc l’objet simultané d’un double régime de réception, qui se caractérisait par l’appartenance de ceux qui la regardaient, soit à la catégorie des colonisateurs (les vainqueurs et les dominateurs), soit à celle des colonisés (les vaincus et les asservis).

En somme, on pourrait dire que la statuaire publique établissait une partition fondée, d’un côté, sur la réception de ceux qui se reconnaissaient culturellement et idéologiquement dans le message, l’exemplarité ou les valeurs qu’elle transmettait et, de l’autre, sur la réception de ceux qui en étaient les spectateurs assujettis. Ces derniers continuaient à être contraints à un système de domination, où la statue prolongeait et rejouait les violences de la conquête et de la répression, en les inscrivant durablement dans le visible par le biais de la monumentalité.

Dans un cas comme dans l’autre, s’établit « la mission psychologique du monument » définie par l’historien Reinhart Koselleck : séduire, surprendre, élever ou impressionner – peut-être même terrifier – l’esprit de celles et ceux qui le regardaient.

Les rouages d’un système

Cette histoire de la statuaire publique comme instrument de l’empire colonial français ne saurait être déconnectée ni de l’histoire militaire des conquêtes et de leurs violences ni de l’histoire économique de l’exploitation forcée des populations colonisées et des spoliations des biens culturels ou des ressources naturelles.

En effet, l’entreprise coloniale reposa sur un ensemble de décisions, de pratiques, d’actes et de propos qui firent système, pour accaparer les territoires conquis par la brutalité afin d’en soustraire les richesses et d’en soumettre les populations dont les droits furent bafoués.

Les statues monumentales érigées dans l’espace public colonisé par les puissances coloniales participèrent donc de cette ambition totale, à laquelle faisait également écho l’odonymie) des rues et des communes.

En outre, cette histoire de la sculpture coloniale monumentale publique s’inscrit dans l’ensemble des politiques qu’on pourrait qualifier de politiques culturelles coloniales, qui recouvrent l’histoire de l’administration, de l’urbanisme, des institutions (par exemple, celle des musées d’art ou d’ethnologie, ou bien celle des expositions coloniales), de l’éducation, de la presse (qui fut un haut lieu de résonance et de promotion de la colonisation)… Sans oublier l’histoire des représentations, puisque les statues appartinrent à une écologie des images coloniales, où elles co-existèrent, circulèrent et furent données à voir avec des images de presse, des photographies, des cartes postales, des gravures de manuels scolaires ou des affiches de propagande.

Des effets miroirs entre l’espace métropolitain et l’espace colonisé

Entre 1830 et 1930, la politique de la statuaire coloniale française consista à transférer vers les territoires colonisés les modèles et les pratiques déjà en usage en métropole. On y reproduisit les mêmes types d’initiatives, les mêmes visées symboliques, et souvent les mêmes héros. Représentés selon des modalités stables, leurs statues étaient parfois reproduites à l’identique (répliques) ou conçues pour dialoguer avec d’autres (pendants), à l’image des effigies de Jules Ferry présentes à Paris, à Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, à Haïphong ou à Tunis.

Cette entreprise monumentale se fondait sur une volonté de constituer ce que le politiste et historien Benedict Anderson a théorisé comme des « communautés imaginées » scellées par des valeurs et une histoire décrétées communes, avec des effets miroirs entre l’espace métropolitain et l’espace colonisé, et leurs populations respectives.

Tous ces monuments, qui sont dans d’écrasantes proportions des objets figuratifs, relèvent du portrait (en médaillon, en buste ou en pied), de la figure en pied ou du type allégorique : les populations dites « autochtones », les races, la Patrie, la République, l’Histoire, la Liberté, l’Agriculture… et du bas-relief donnant à voir des épisodes narratifs sous la forme de tableaux-sculptures intégrés aux piédestaux, en complément de la figure principale nécessairement plus figée.

À ces répertoires iconographiques conjugués en vue d’augmenter la performativité didactique de la monumentalité, il convient d’ajouter le piédestal et son environnement solennisant d’emmarchements et de grilles. Celui-ci emprunte son langage opératoire à l’architecture et renvoie à cet imaginaire qui, fondé sur la puissance politique de bâtir, jouit d’un pouvoir de représentation sociale, de distribution spatiale et de légitimation symbolique.

En tant que combinaison d’éléments sculptés et architecturaux, la statuaire publique produit donc des représentations de la colonisation, au sens que le philosophe Louis Marin a donné à ce terme : représenter consiste à re-présenter, c’est-à-dire « exhiber, exposer devant les yeux/montrer, intensifier, redoubler une présence ». Ceci explique non seulement pourquoi, en grand nombre, les monuments érigés en Algérie furent « rapatriés » en France après l’indépendance de l’ancienne colonie (1962), mais aussi pourquoi ils furent réclamés par les autorités métropolitaines et comment ils s’inscrivirent alors sans susciter d’émoi dans de nouveaux contextes urbanistiques et mémoriels : le duc d’Orléans (d’Alger à Neuilly-sur-Seine en région parisienne), le général Juchault de Lamoricière (de Constantine à Saint-Philibert-de-Grand-Lieu en Loire-Atlantique) ou Jeanne d’Arc (d’Oran à Caen en Normandie).

L’histoire de la statue du sergent Blandan, de Boufarik (entre Alger et Blida) où elle fut inaugurée en 1887 à Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle) où elle fut installée en 1963, en est l’emblème. L’inauguration, le 6 novembre 2025 d’un « contre-monument » érigé dans ses parages, conçu par Dorothée-Myriam Kellou, s’inscrit dans ce contexte d’une histoire polyphonique, où la négociation et la pédagogie l’emportent sur le déboulonnement et le retrait de l’espace public.

La Table de désorientation dans laquelle il a pris forme veut faire tenir ensemble les fils inextricables d’une histoire toujours vive, qui est celle de la colonisation et de la décolonisation, de leurs mémoires contradictoires et de leurs héritages complexes, dont l’espace public est le théâtre.

Bertrand Tillier ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Ce que les statues coloniales dans l’espace public racontent de la France – https://theconversation.com/ce-que-les-statues-coloniales-dans-lespace-public-racontent-de-la-france-268697

November 4, 2025

African countries need strong development banks: how they can push back against narratives to weaken them

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Misheck Mutize, Post Doctoral Researcher, Graduate School of Business (GSB), University of Cape Town

A quiet but consequential contest is playing out in the global financial architecture. One that could determine Africa’s ability to finance its own development.

In recent months, powerful voices from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Paris Club and US investment bank JP Morgan have questioned the preferred creditor status of African multilateral development finance institutions. These institutions include the Africa Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) and the Trade and Development Bank (TDB).

Preferred creditor status is a long-standing practice in global finance. It gives multilateral development finance institutions priority in being repaid when a country faces financial distress. The idea is simple. These institutions lend to promote development. During crises, they step in with counter cyclical lending – increasing support when commercial creditors pull out.

This reliability depends on their strong credit ratings, which in turn rest on the assurance that they will be repaid even when others are not. That assurance is what the preferred creditor status guarantees. The World Bank, IMF and regional development banks in Asia and Latin America all enjoy this protection as a matter of practice. Borrowers respect it because breaching it would threaten their access to future concessional lending – loans offered on much lower interest rates and other terms.

The voices against African multilateral finance institutions argue that they are too small to deserve preferred creditor status. Or that, unlike the World Bank and IMF, they do not lend at concessional rates. JP Morgan has even warned that Africa’s development banks might lose their status altogether.

The debate about the preferred creditor status of Africa’s multilateral development finance institutions may sound technical. It is not. If left unchallenged, this narrative could justify the continued high interest rates Africa faces on international markets.

Drawing on decades of researching Africa’s capital markets and the institutions that govern them, I recommend that African governments must reaffirm and defend the preferred creditor status of multilateral development banks. African multilateral development banks must also act collectively to defend their credibility. And the African Union must embed the preferred creditor status of the continent’s development banks in its financial sovereignty agenda.

Unwritten privilege vs law

For the IMF, World Bank and Paris Club, the preferred creditor status is an unwritten privilege. For African multilateral development banks, it is law.

The founding treaties of Afreximbank, the African Development Bank and TDB explicitly enshrine this status. These treaties are registered under Article 102 of the UN Charter, making them binding under international law. African member states have also ratified them into law, domestically.

This makes the status of African multilateral development banks more legally secure than that of Bretton Woods institutions. Yet it is the African banks whose status is now described as “uncertain” or “controversial”.

African governments must correct this perception. The African Union and its members have already endorsed this principle, but stronger, coordinated public statements are needed, especially from finance ministers and central banks. The aim will be to reassure investors that these protections are real, enforceable and backed by political will.

Collective action

Institutions such as Afreximbank, the AfDB, TDB, Shelter Afriqué Development Bank and the Africa Finance Corporation have grown rapidly. Together, they hold more than US$640 billion in assets, expanding by about 15% a year. They have mobilised billions from global capital markets and stepped up lending when global finance withdrew. They have diversified into the panda bonds in China, proving their resilience and capacity to tap into nontraditional capital markets.

Their success, however, has attracted resistance. International creditors and rating agencies have started questioning their preferred creditor status, describing it as “weak” or “shaky”. This has real consequences. It weakens investor confidence. Investors demand higher returns, raising the cost of borrowing for the banks and, by extension, for African countries, based on a risk factor that does not exist.

To counter this, African multilateral development banks must coordinate their responses. The newly formed Association of African Multilateral Financial Institutions is a promising platform. It should be more active and become the unified voice defending the preferred creditor status. It should be used to issue joint legal opinions, engage directly with credit rating agencies and Paris Club members, and run global investor education campaigns that clarify the legal standing and strong performance of African multilateral development banks. The continent’s development banks must speak with one voice. Silence allows others to define their credibility.

Continent’s financial sovereignty

Protecting preferred creditor status is about more than technical finance. It is about sovereignty. Africa is building its own financial ecosystem through the African Credit Rating Agency. The other financial institutions in the ecosystem – which aren’t yet operational – are the African Central Bank, African Investment Bank and African Monetary Fund. Their purpose will be to reduce dependence on external actors and keep Africa’s development agenda in African hands.

A battle of perception

Global finance runs on perception which is shaped by narratives. Those who control the narratives control the cost of money. If the preferred creditor status of African multilateral development banks continues to be misrepresented, Africa’s access to affordable finance will remain hostage to external opinion rather than legal reality.

It will also weaken African development banks just as they are becoming more effective. Their ability to borrow cheaply and on favourable terms depends on their credit ratings, which rest on the assumption that they will be repaid first in case of distress. If that assumption is shaken, borrowing costs will rise.

By reaffirming the legal basis of the preferred creditor status of African multilateral development banks, coordinating their response and embedding this status in the AU’s financial sovereignty framework, African governments and multilateral development lenders can protect one of the most important tools for affordable development finance.

This is not just about defending institutions, it’s about defending Africa’s right to finance its own future on fair terms.

Misheck Mutize is affiliated with the African Union – African Peer Review Mechanism as a Lead Expert on credit ratings

– ref. African countries need strong development banks: how they can push back against narratives to weaken them – https://theconversation.com/african-countries-need-strong-development-banks-how-they-can-push-back-against-narratives-to-weaken-them-267989

November 4, 2025

Artificial developments weaken coastal resilience – here’s how mapping them can help

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Dhritiraj Sengupta, Visiting Researcher, University of Southampton

Reclamation at Colombo Port, Sri Lanka. Google Earth

The coastlines I trace resemble logos and luxury icons: palms, crescents, pixelated grids, surreal ornaments etched into shallow seas. The cartography is striking. The environmental consequences are very concerning.

There is an urgent need to evaluate the negative effects and risks associated with these artificial structures around the world, especially as climate change makes sea-level rise more extreme.

For ten years, I have been tracking changing coastlines and trying to map the spread of artificial coastal developments. But this is difficult for two reasons.

First, it’s tricky to define what counts as reclamation and what doesn’t. Does a polder (a piece of low-lying land reclaimed from the sea) belong in the same category as a luxury island? Do sea walls belong in the same category as “dredge-and-fill peninsulas” (land created by digging sand from a seabed or river banks that is used to fill an area of water).

Second, at a global scale, constantly updating maps with rapidly changing unnatural boundary designs is a never-ending task, which involves extracting data from satellite images.

The geometry of reclaimed sites and artificial shorelines can seem bizarre – ranging from the leafed fronds of Ocean Flower Island in Hainan, China, to perfect crescents in Durrat Al Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and straight-edged lattices in Lagos, Nigeria. In most cases, they are designed to look appealing without much consideration of ocean health or storm resilience.

aerial shot of horseshoe shaped coastal islands in sea — Durrat Al Bahrain island in the Persian Gulf.
PaPicasso/Shutterstock

Sharp angles interrupt longshore drift. Features such as headlands, jetties or bends in the coastline block or redirect the flow of sand moved by waves. This causes sand to build up in some areas while leaving other beaches with less sand, leading to erosion.

With artificial coastlines, these effects are amplified – a particular problem in places without the financial means to manage their beaches.

Grid-like canals slice tidal flats into disjointed basins. On maps, the lines are neat – but in reality, they produce messy hydrodynamics and fragmented ecosystems.

Such misplaced “neatness” can have far-reaching consequences. Reclamation destroys mangroves, muddy tidal flats and seagrass meadows – ecosystems which act both as valuable stores of atmospheric carbon and fish nurseries.

Dredging also stirs up sediment which clouds the water downstream, making it harder for coral reefs to survive. This compounds climate stress, acting as a threat multiplier. Most of the artificial coastlines aren’t as resilient to extreme weather as they could be.

Human-made coastal changes disturb natural water flow, often leading to poor water quality, floods and erosion. Coastal communities can lose their fishing grounds and safe landing beaches. Without protective natural ecosystems acting as a buffer against extreme weather, often the poorest coastal communities bear the greatest impacts from coastal erosion and sea-level rise.

There’s also a carbon cost to this type of coastal development. Dredgers, quarrying, cement and machinery all stack up emissions. Add in the lost carbon storage from destroyed wetlands, and reclamation becomes a climate double blow.

How maps become bridges to action

Maps reveal where, when and how much development is occurring. They can become bridges to action if this research into shoreline change is combined with biodiversity surveys (to assess marine life), hydrodynamic modelling (changes to currents) and social impact assessments (how coastal communities are affected).

In my view, environmental impact assessments should look beyond short-term, single-project effects, and consider how multiple projects collectively affect ecosystems over time. Construction approvals should depend not only on each project’s immediate footprint, but on how it will perform across its entire lifetime – for example, how much flood risk it creates and how much carbon it emits or saves.

Using a mix of tools to engage diverse groups – including local communities, policymakers, scientists and educators – can strengthen understanding and action on coastal change. Examples include holding workshops on the interpretation of satellite-derived data and visualisations, creating interactive StoryMaps (digital storybooks using maps, pictures and text to explain a topic), as well as community-driven mapping.

Many coastal and fishing communities located around reclamation sites – who previously had direct access to the coast – are now calling to halt further reclamation. By documenting lost ecosystems, tracing flood pathways and highlighting human stories behind coastal change, we can better understand how vulnerable coastal communities are to land reclamation.

close up shot of sandy reclaimed islands and turquoise sea — Dubai’s The World is a series of manufactured sandy island developments.
Felix Lipov/Shutterstock

Some damage is irreversible. Natural coastlines are not just scenic – they are self-maintaining, shock-absorbing, carbon-storing infrastructure. A moratorium on new reclamation throughout the world is needed – and a pivot to restoration by rebuilding lost mangroves, protecting tidal creeks and removing “hard edges” where possible.

Mapping alone will not stop coastal development. But it can catalyse coalitions, inform policy, expose hidden costs and redirect finance. It can turn a line on a screen into a line in the sand.

I began my research by trying to define reclamation precisely enough to classify it. But it has revealed a more urgent task: to defend what remains of the natural coastline, and restore what we still can.

The coastline is not a canvas for our extravagant signatures. When protected, it is nature’s living margin which sustains us.

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Dhritiraj Sengupta receives funding from the Chinese Government Scholarship (CSC , 2016-2020) and from Leverhulme Trust Funding for the project on “Unnatural dynamics of flood deposits in built environments”, plus volunteers for International Geographical Union (https://igu-coast.org/steering-committee/) and is a fellow of the Future Earth Coast (https://www.futureearthcoasts.org/biography/dr-dhritiraj-sengupta/).

– ref. Artificial developments weaken coastal resilience – here’s how mapping them can help – https://theconversation.com/artificial-developments-weaken-coastal-resilience-heres-how-mapping-them-can-help-250299

November 4, 2025

Social work is a serious profession – why not youth work? What South Africa needs to get right

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Thulani Andrew Chauke, Lecturer, University of South Africa

About 3.5 million South Africans aged 15-24 are disengaged from the formal economy and education system. In the first quarter of 2025, 37.1% of young people were not in employment, education, or training.

These alarming figures highlight an urgent need for youth development.
Interventions such as skills and entrepreneurship development are needed to expertly guide young people towards participating in the mainstream economy.

Designing and running those interventions requires professional youth workers.

Youth work is an emerging profession within the social services sector. It aims to promote positive youth development through young people’s voluntary participation. The expertise needed in this work includes empathy, strong communication, and advocacy skills. It’s similar to social work but its main focus is the empowerment of young people. Examples include peer-to-peer literacy support and community-based drug prevention campaigns.

For youth work to be regarded as a profession, it must be organised and subject to regulations and standards that guide practice. This involves the establishment of a code of ethics and standardised formal training in the higher education sector.

In South Africa, much of this kind of work is done by non-profit organisations. It is often performed by a mix of qualified practitioners (people with a degree or diploma in youth development) and dedicated, yet unqualified, volunteers. The country does not have a database to indicate how many youth workers there are.

It’s often treated as voluntary or ancillary work. The result is that some practitioners are poorly remunerated and the field lacks the stature and regulation of other social services, such as social work.

South Africa does have policy and legislative frameworks to support youth work. These include the National Youth Policy 2015 and the National Youth Development Agency’s
2022 Integrated Youth Development Strategy.

So, given the need for youth work and the supporting policies, why hasn’t youth work been professionalised in South Africa? As an academic who researches youth development initiatives, I wanted to understand this better. In a recent study, my co-author Doris Kakuru (a social scientist in Canada) and I asked youth work stakeholders for their perspectives on the barriers to professionalisation.

We asked a selection of 30 people involved in youth development work, including qualified youth workers, a policymaker, and youth development experts from universities. They identified three main barriers:

lack of political will
absence of organised spaces for the profession
non-existence of a standardised curriculum.

Removing these barriers would result in a sector with formal ethics, qualifications and standards. This would protect the workers and the young people they work with, and make their work more effective.

South Africa’s youth work landscape

Unlike that of teachers or social workers, youth work remains unregulated. Practitioners are not required to hold accredited qualifications, there is no professional association representing them, and there is no uniform standard of practice.

The University of Venda in South Africa’s Limpopo province offers a four-year Bachelor’s degree in Youth Development and the University of South Africa (distance learning) previously offered a diploma. Many youth workers have been trained since 1999. But the field has not achieved full professional recognition: rules, ethics, formal training, standards, organisation.

To explore the reasons for this, our study used a qualitative research approach. The participants had a qualification in youth development, work experience in the sector, or teaching experience in youth development qualifications.

Our findings identified three main barriers to the professionalisation of youth work in South Africa:

The first is lack of political will. Despite policy acknowledgements, in practice there is no political commitment to regulating youth work. Respondents in our study said that individuals in positions of political authority fear that formal regulation, which would require formal qualifications, could jeopardise their own positions as “gatekeepers” in the sector.

The second barrier is an absence of advocacy spaces. Fragmentation within the sector means there is no organised, professional youth work association to advocate for regulation. Qualified practitioners are not sufficiently organised to champion their profession.

Thirdly, there is no standardised curriculum to train youth workers. This has weakened the professional identity of youth work. Universities use different programme titles (such as Diploma in Youth Development and BA in Youth in Development), making it difficult for graduates to be uniformly recognised as “youth workers”.

Strengthening the machinery of youth development must start with the formal recognition of youth work as a profession. For youth work to be regarded as a profession, it must be organised and subject to regulations and standards that guide youth work practice. This involves the establishment of a code of ethics and formal training in the higher education sector.

This step is crucial to ensuring that interventions are designed, coordinated and managed by skilled, accredited practitioners.

Benefits of recognition

Formal recognition of youth work in South Africa would deliver several benefits:

a code of ethics to guide practices, protecting both the youth workers and the young people they serve
formal qualifications, ensuring practitioners work with young people in an effective and professional manner
minimum standards for all individuals working with young people in informal education settings.

The way forward

To regulate youth work as a profession in South Africa, key stakeholders, including the government and civil society, must take decisive action:

Establish a dedicated task team: The parliamentary portfolio committee on women, youth and persons with disabilities should set up a task team. This should be composed of senior government officials, heads of departments from institutions offering youth development qualifications, youth workers from NGOs, and experts in the field. The task force must oversee the translation of regulatory frameworks into concrete practices.
Standardise curriculum and qualifications: Institutions of higher education must agree on what to teach. This will ensure that graduates share a common understanding of youth development work.
Organise a professional association: Qualified youth workers must form an association. It could accommodate current practitioners (even those without formal qualifications), encouraging them to pursue training.
Prioritise youth work in academia: Staff who teach, design curricula and supervise research must have postgraduate qualifications in youth development.
Mandate qualifications: Qualifications should be a prerequisite for youth development positions in government departments, local government and civil society.

The professionalisation of youth work is not a mere bureaucratic formality; it is an economic and social imperative for the future of South Africa’s youth.

Thulani Andrew Chauke works for University of South Africa. He receives funding from the University through VKP to conduct this study.

– ref. Social work is a serious profession – why not youth work? What South Africa needs to get right – https://theconversation.com/social-work-is-a-serious-profession-why-not-youth-work-what-south-africa-needs-to-get-right-267298

November 4, 2025

AI in the courtroom: the dangers of using ChatGTP in legal practice in South Africa

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Jacques Matthee, Senior Lecturer, University of the Free State

A South African court case made headlines for all the wrong reasons in January 2025. The legal team in Mavundla v MEC: Department of Co-Operative Government and Traditional Affairs KwaZulu-Natal and Others had relied on case law that simply didn’t exist. It had been generated by ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by OpenAI.

Only two of the nine case authorities the legal team submitted to the High Court were genuine. The rest were AI-fabricated “hallucinations”. The court called this conduct “irresponsible and unprofessional” and referred the matter to the Legal Practice Council, the statutory body that regulates legal practitioners in South Africa, for investigation.

It was not the first time South African courts had encountered such an incident. Parker v Forsyth in 2023 also dealt with fake case law produced by ChatGPT. But the judge was more forgiving in that instance, finding no intent to mislead. The Mavundla ruling marks a turning point: courts are losing patience with legal practitioners who use AI irresponsibly.

We are legal academics who have been doing research on the growing use of AI, particularly generative AI, in legal research and education. While these technologies offer powerful tools for enhancing efficiency and productivity, they also present serious risks when used irresponsibly.

Aspiring legal practitioners who misuse AI tools without proper guidance or ethical grounding risk severe professional consequences, even before their careers begin. Law schools should equip students with the skills and judgment to use AI tools responsibly. But most institutions remain unprepared for the pace at which AI is being adopted.

Very few universities have formal policies or training on AI. Students are left with no guide through this rapidly evolving terrain. Our work calls for a proactive and structured approach to AI education in law schools.

When technology becomes a liability

The advocate in the Mavundla case admitted she had not verified the citations and relied instead on research done by a junior colleague. That colleague, a candidate attorney, claimed to have obtained the material from an online research tool. While she denied using ChatGPT, the pattern matched similar global incidents where lawyers unknowingly filed AI-generated judgments.

In the 2024 American case of Park v Kim, the attorney cited non-existent case law in her reply brief, which she admitted was generated using ChatGPT. In the 2024 Canadian case of Zhang v Chen, the lawyer filed a notice of application containing two non-existent case authorities fabricated by ChatGPT.

The court in Mavundla was unequivocal: no matter how advanced technology becomes, lawyers remain responsible for ensuring that every source they present is accurate. Workload pressure or ignorance of AI’s risks is no defence.

The judge also criticised the supervising attorney for failing to check the documents before filing them. The episode underscored a broader ethical principle: senior lawyers must properly train and supervise junior colleagues.

The lesson here extends far beyond one law firm. Integrity, accuracy and critical thinking are not optional extras in the legal profession. They are core values that must be taught and practised from the beginning, during legal education.

The classroom is the first courtroom

The Mavundla case should serve as a warning to universities. If experienced legal practitioners can fall into AI traps regarding law, students still learning to research and reason can too.

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can be powerful allies – they can summarise cases, draft arguments and analyse complex texts in seconds. But they can also confidently fabricate information. Because AI models don’t always “know” when they are wrong, they produce text that looks authoritative but may be entirely false.

For students, the dangers are twofold. First, over-reliance on AI can stunt the development of critical research skills. Second, it can lead to serious academic or professional misconduct. A student who submits AI-fabricated content could face disciplinary action at university and reputational damage that follows them into their legal career.

In our paper we argue that, instead of banning AI tools outright, law schools should teach students to use them responsibly. This means developing “AI literacy”: the ability to question, verify and contextualise AI-generated information. Students should learn to treat AI systems as assistants, not authorities.

In South African legal practice, authority traditionally refers to recognised sources such as legislation, judicial precedent and academic commentary, which lawyers cite to support their arguments. These sources are accessed through established legal databases and law reports, a process that, while time-consuming, ensures accuracy, accountability and adherence to the rule of law.

From law faculties to courtrooms

Legal educators can embed AI literacy into existing courses on research methodology, professional ethics and legal writing. Exercises could include verifying AI-generated summaries against real judgments or analysing the ethical implications of relying on machine-produced arguments.

Teaching responsible AI use is not simply about avoiding embarrassment in court. It is about protecting the integrity of the justice system itself. As seen in Mavundla, one candidate attorney’s uncritical use of AI led to professional investigation, public scrutiny and reputational damage to the firm.

The financial risks are also real. Courts can order lawyers to pay costs out of their pockets, when serious professional misconduct occurs. In the digital era, where court judgments and media reports spread instantly online, a lawyer’s reputation can collapse overnight if they are found to have relied on fake or unverified AI material. It would also be beneficial for courts to be trained in detecting fake cases generated by AI.

The way forward

Our study concludes that AI is here to stay, and so is its use in law. The challenge is not whether the legal profession should use AI, but how. Law schools have a critical opportunity, and an ethical duty, to prepare future practitioners for a world where technology and human judgment must work side by side.

Speed and convenience can never replace accuracy and integrity. As AI becomes a routine part of legal research, tomorrow’s lawyers must be trained not just to prompt – but to think.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. AI in the courtroom: the dangers of using ChatGTP in legal practice in South Africa – https://theconversation.com/ai-in-the-courtroom-the-dangers-of-using-chatgtp-in-legal-practice-in-south-africa-267691

November 4, 2025

Taxer les aliments ultra-transformés : solution ou fléau ?

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Nina Klioueva, Université de Montréal

Les aliments ultra-transformés dominent désormais l’alimentation des Canadiens. Leur présence massive en épicerie, leurs prix bas et leur commodité en font des choix faciles, surtout pour les ménages pressés ou à faible revenu. Mais leur surconsommation accroît les risques de maladies chroniques. Une question s’impose : taxer ces produits pourrait-il vraiment améliorer la santé publique sans pénaliser les plus vulnérables ?

Au Canada, 46 % de l’apport calorique total provient d’aliments ultra-transformés, une proportion qui grimpe à 50 % chez les adolescents. Autrement dit, près de la moitié de ce que nous mangeons quotidiennement provient de produits industriels modifiés et enrichis d’additifs, de sucres libres, de gras saturés et de sodium. Ces aliments, conçus pour être hyperappétissants et se conserver longtemps, sont directement liés à une hausse de l’obésité, du diabète de type 2, des maladies cardiovasculaires et de certains cancers. Devant ces constats, plusieurs pays ont choisi d’agir : certains ont adopté des politiques réglementaires strictes, alors que d’autres misent sur la sensibilisation et la responsabilité volontaire des entreprises alimentaires.

Le débat autour de la taxation de ces produits s’inscrit dans un enjeu plus large d’équité sociale. D’un côté, les taxes nutritionnelles visent à réduire la consommation de produits nocifs pour la santé. De l’autre, elles risquent de frapper plus durement les ménages à faible revenu, qui dépendent souvent de ces aliments bon marché. Trouver un équilibre entre efficacité et justice sociale devient donc essentiel.

Des exemples internationaux inspirants

Certains pays ont déjà franchi le pas et démontrent que des mesures ambitieuses peuvent avoir un réel impact. Le Chili, souvent cité en exemple, a mis en œuvre dès 2016 une politique complète et cohérente. Celle-ci impose des étiquettes d’avertissement noires sur les produits contenant trop de sucre, de sel, de gras saturés ou de calories. Elle interdit la publicité de malbouffe destinée aux enfants entre 6 h et 22 h, bannit les boissons sucrées et les chips dans les écoles, et prohibe l’utilisation de personnages de dessins animés sur les emballages ciblant les moins de 14 ans. Résultat : la consommation de boissons sucrées a chuté de 24 % entre 2015 et 2017. Au-delà des chiffres, cette réforme a contribué à une prise de conscience collective et à une meilleure compréhension du lien entre alimentation et santé.

Le Mexique offre un autre exemple marquant. En 2014, il a instauré une taxe sur les produits dépassant 275 kcal pour 100 g, ainsi que sur les boissons sucrées. Cette mesure a entraîné une réduction moyenne de 17 % des achats parmi les ménages à faible revenu. Ces résultats démontrent qu’une taxation bien ciblée peut modifier les comportements alimentaires à court terme. Toutefois, elle met aussi en lumière ses limites sociales. En effet, les produits ultra-transformés demeurent souvent les plus accessibles sur le plan économique et logistique. Pour plusieurs familles, ces aliments représentent une source de calories bon marché et faciles à préparer.

Ainsi, une taxation seule ne suffit pas : elle doit être accompagnée d’initiatives favorisant l’accès à des aliments sains et abordables. Sans cela, elle risque de creuser davantage les inégalités alimentaires. L’instauration d’une taxe peut réduire les choix alimentaires des ménages les plus modestes, sans garantir un accès équivalent à des alternatives saines et abordables, comme les fruits et légumes. C’est pourquoi l’Organisation mondiale de la Santé cherche aujourd’hui à mieux définir la catégorie des aliments ultra-transformés, afin d’harmoniser les politiques publiques et de guider les pays dans leurs stratégies de prévention.

Le Canada à la croisée des chemins

Face à ces expériences étrangères, le Canada amorce lentement un virage, mais le cadre réglementaire reste en retard. Le pays prévoit d’introduire, en janvier 2026, un étiquetage nutritionnel sur le devant des emballages, inspiré du modèle chilien. Cette mesure vise à aider les consommateurs à repérer d’un coup d’œil les produits riches en sucre, en sel ou en gras saturés. Elle constitue une étape importante vers une meilleure transparence alimentaire.

Cependant, la fiscalité alimentaire canadienne demeure inchangée depuis près de 35 ans. Le système actuel taxe ou exonère certains produits selon des critères désuets, comme la taille du format ou l’état prêt-à-consommer, plutôt que selon le degré de transformation ou la valeur nutritionnelle réelle. Résultat : certaines incohérences persistent. Par exemple, un grand format de boisson gazeuse peut être non taxé, alors qu’un repas sain et préparé à base d’ingrédients frais peut l’être. Ce paradoxe entretient la confusion chez les consommateurs et peut involontairement encourager la surconsommation de produits transformés à bas prix.

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Pour que la politique fiscale canadienne soutienne réellement la santé publique, une révision complète du système s’impose. Il serait souhaitable d’intégrer des critères nutritionnels clairs, alignés sur les recommandations de Santé Canada et sur les données scientifiques les plus récentes. De plus, une taxation efficace devrait s’accompagner de subventions ciblées favorisant l’achat de fruits, légumes, légumineuses et produits peu transformés.

Vers une approche plus juste et équilibrée

La taxation des aliments ultra-transformés peut constituer un levier puissant pour améliorer la santé publique, mais son efficacité dépend du contexte dans lequel elle s’inscrit. Une politique isolée, centrée uniquement sur la taxe, risque d’être perçue comme punitive et injuste. En revanche, une stratégie intégrée, combinant taxation modérée, étiquetage clair, subventions pour les aliments sains et programmes d’éducation alimentaire, pourrait produire des effets durables et équitables.

Une telle approche permettrait de réduire la consommation de produits malsains tout en soutenant les populations les plus vulnérables. Elle éviterait de créer un paradoxe où une mesure de santé publique, conçue pour protéger la population, contribuerait en réalité à accentuer les inégalités sociales. Le défi du Canada est donc de repenser sa fiscalité alimentaire en s’appuyant sur les leçons des autres pays, tout en veillant à ne laisser personne derrière.

Nina Klioueva a reçu des financements sous forme de bourse de maîtrise en recherche pour titulaires d’un diplôme professionnel – volet régulier du FRQ, ainsi qu’une Bourse d’études supérieures du Canada – maîtrise (BESC M) des IRSC.

Maude Perreault a reçu du financement du Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada.

– ref. Taxer les aliments ultra-transformés : solution ou fléau ? – https://theconversation.com/taxer-les-aliments-ultra-transformes-solution-ou-fleau-268051

November 4, 2025

SETI’s ‘Noah’s Ark’ – a space historian explores how the advent of radio astronomy led to the USSR’s search for extraterrestrial life

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Gabriela Radulescu, Guggenheim Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian Institution

The planetary radar, built in 1960 in Crimea, from which the Morse signal ‘MIR, Lenin, USSR’ was sent in November 1962. National Radio Astronomy Observatory Archive

As humans began to explore outer space in the latter half of the 20th century, radio waves proved a powerful tool. Scientists could send out radio waves to communicate with satellites, rockets and other spacecraft, and use radio telescopes to take in radio waves emitted by objects throughout the universe.

However, sometimes radio telescopes would pick up the artificial radio signals from telecommunications. This interference threatened sensitive astronomy observations, causing inaccurate data and even damaging equipment. While this interference frustrated scientists, it also sparked an idea.

During the Cold War, a new field emerged at the intersection of radio astronomy and radio communications. It put forward the idea that astronomers could search for radio communications from possibly existing extraterrestrial civilizations. Astronomy usually dealt with observing the universe’s natural phenomena. But this new field made the detection of technologically, or artificially produced radio waves, the object of a natural science.

This field has continued today and is now called the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. SETI encompasses all that scientists do to search for intelligent life beyond Earth. It includes one of the original uses of radio telescopes: to study signals from across the galaxy in hopes of detecting intelligent messages.

When the idea behind SETI was first proposed and pursued in the 1960s, only two countries, the U.S. and the USSR, had the technical capability for it. As the only space powers at the time, they were the key actors affected by radio frequency interference.

As a historian of science, I’ve worked to make sense of what happened throughout the history of Soviet SETI during the space race by analyzing a range of primary sources. SETI captured the scientific imagination of many prominent Soviet astronomers in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Astronomers have not yet confirmed any detection of radio signals – or any other kinds of signs – from extraterrestrial civilizations. But many scientists are still searching, even as their bold ideas run into obstacles. Some evidence suggests humans might be the only intelligent life in the universe.

Soviet SETI: The golden age of radio astronomy

SETI is intertwined with the profound changes brought by radio astronomy. Up until the second part of the 20th century, scientists could see astronomical objects and phenomena only in optical or visible light. Optical light is the same kind of light that the human eye is sensitive to.

After World War II, scientists figured out that they could peacefully use radar antennas, developed for use in that war, to detect radio signals coming from objects out in the universe. Deciphering these signals allowed researchers to study astronomical objects in the universe. They learned, for example, about the most abundant element: hydrogen.

In the former Soviet Union, the prominent radio astronomy pioneer Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky played a key role in detecting radio signals from hydrogen.

Scientists knew that every chemical element would absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect others, and the light signals that an object absorbed or reflected could tell astronomers what element it was. Most hydrogen could not be observed directly in optical light, so astronomers didn’t spot it out in space until they started looking beyond the visible light spectrum.

Shklovsky figured out how to detect hydrogen with radio waves, which helped astronomers map the distribution and motion of hydrogen gas in and between galaxies.

Historians generally consider the year 1960 the start of the golden age of radio astronomy. After the detection of hydrogen, astronomers discovered previously unknown types of stars, such as pulsars and quasars. These phenomena offered scientists new insights into the nature of astrophysical phenomena and fundamental physics.

A journal cover in Russian — The Priroda issue in which Shklovsky’s article ‘Is Communication with Intelligent Beings of Other Planets Possible?’ was published.
Priroda/RAS

Shklovsky later grew fascinated with the possibility of using radio waves to contact other intelligent beings in the universe. In 1960, he published an article on this topic in one of the country’s most prestigious scientific journals.

Shklovsky’s article soon expanded into a widely popular book called “Universe, Life, Intelligence,” published in 1962. That same year, the USSR’s Academy of Sciences sent its first radio message in the direction of Venus from a radar in Crimea.

The experiment involved bouncing radio signals off the surface of Venus to transmit the following words using Morse code: Lenin, USSR and mir, which in Russian means both world and peace. Even though statistically increasing radio interference risk, this message was mainly symbolic. The Soviet Union wanted to depict its technological might and wasn’t expecting to communicate with extraterrestrials. Soviet SETI was thus not yet a real pursuit.

A man sitting at a desk, writing with a pen. — Iosif S. Shklovsky at a SETI conference in Soviet Russia in 1975.
NRAO/AUI/NSF

Starting an organized search

Shklovsky and the majority of other radio astronomers pursuing the search for extraterrestrial intelligence were all located in central Russia at the time. The USSR Academy of Sciences was also located there. But this group needed more formal measures to move their search from a few initiatives into a coordinated effort.

Due to concerns over unwanted public attention, the scientists organized a conference far from Moscow, at the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory in the Soviet Republic of Armenia, in 1964. At this conference, researchers formed a group specifically dedicated to studying artificial radio signals from space. With this group, SETI became a top-down, state-led activity.

A journal cover reading 'CETI' in Cyrillic – which stands for SETI in English – in big letters, with a picture of a galaxy — A 1971 Conference Proceedings volume focused on SETI (CETI in Cyrillic) and was published in Russian.

With this validation, scientists could now theoretically look for artificial signals, potentially from an alien origin. However, any discussions about artificial radio signals were subject to strict government surveillance, given the fact that military satellites depended on them, too.

Soviet scientists faced several obstacles. For example, their own government’s secrecy made coordination difficult. The Cold War also set limits on developing SETI internationally. However, they had a green light to search and study peculiar signals they suspected had artificial origin.

International collaboration

Efforts to collaborate internationally on artificial signals culminated in 1971 with a symposium, again at Byurakan. There, about 50 scientists – the majority from the U.S. and the USSR, but also some from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the U.K. and Canada – agreed to disagree on how to best conduct SETI.

Some in attendance compared this gathering to Noah’s Ark, because an almost equal number of prominent scientists from East and West of the Iron Curtain managed to meet that year. And the gathering took place in Armenia at the foot of Mount Ararat, located in neighboring Turkey. This mountain is where archaeologists believe Noah’s Ark may have beached.

After almost a week of discussion at Byurakan, the two geopolitical blocks designated an official SETI group. That group still exists today, and it still connects researchers all around the world who conduct SETI research. Given the secrecy around radio signals in space, this international SETI group marked a momentous diplomatic achievement at the height of the Cold War.

A black and white photo of a group of people gathered by a large hill, and a black and white photo of writing reading 'Pamir Expedition, Search for Single pulses from Extra-ter. civilizations' — Postcard with Soviet scientists conducting SETI experiments in the Pamir region of Tajikistan, with a note on the back to their U.S. correspondent.
NRAO/AUI/NSF

SETI started in the Soviet Union with a few strong Moscow-based initiatives. It continued through group events in Armenia – from the first state-level Soviet conference to the international one.

SETI is the first and only domain of astronomy to study artificial radio signals themselves. It indirectly addressed radio frequency interference during a time when these frequencies were highly unregulated.

Stakeholder countries eventually addressed their radio frequency interference issues with international agreements on radio frequency usage and allocation. An international committee approved a feasible and comprehensive radio frequency allocation plan for the first time in the 1970s. This plan has been revised and renewed ever since. Today, space scientists and astronomers use an internationally agreed upon plan to minimize this interference.

Remarkably, SETI began even before this allocation plan. SETI continues its rich legacy today by continuing to search for signals – and along the way discovering new astrophysical objects and phenomena.

Gabriela Radulescu has received funding from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum as a Guggenheim Postdoctoral Fellow (2024-2025), from the American Institute of Physics for a Grant-in-Aid, as well as from the Elsa-Neumann Scholarship and the Technical University of Berlin Coordinating Office for Women’s Advancement and Gender Equality for her doctoral research.

– ref. SETI’s ‘Noah’s Ark’ – a space historian explores how the advent of radio astronomy led to the USSR’s search for extraterrestrial life – https://theconversation.com/setis-noahs-ark-a-space-historian-explores-how-the-advent-of-radio-astronomy-led-to-the-ussrs-search-for-extraterrestrial-life-262402

November 4, 2025

2 ways you can conserve the water used to make your food

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Huma Tariq Malik, Ph.D. Student in Soil and Crop Sciences, Colorado State University

Irrigation equipment waters an alfalfa field in Kansas. AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

As the world’s climate warms and droughts and water shortages are becoming more common, farmers are struggling to produce enough food. Farmers continue to adapt, but there are ways for you to help, too.

For decades, farmers have sought to conserve water in agriculture, with a focus on improving irrigation efficiency. That has included decreasing the practice of flood irrigation, in which water flows through trenches between rows of plants. Instead, many farmers are adopting more precise methods of delivering water to plants’ roots, such as sprinklers and drip systems.

In recent years, policymakers, researchers and consumers have come to look more closely at opportunities to conserve water throughout the entire process of growing, shipping, selling and eating food. Working with colleagues, we have identified several key ways to reduce water used in agriculture – some of which directly involve farmers, but two of which everyone can follow, to help reduce how much water is used to grow the food they eat.

Some work for farmers

Farmers can match crops to local land, water and climate conditions to reduce stress on scarce resources and make food production more sustainable in the long run. That could include reducing the amount of alfalfa and other hay crops used to feed livestock, or swapping out wheat and sorghum and instead planting corn and potatoes.

The condition of the soil also matters. Many farmers have focused on short-term productivity, relying on fertilizers or frequent tillage to boost yields from one season to the next. But over time, those practices wear down the soil, making it less fertile and less able to hold water.

Soil is not just a surface to grow things on. It is a living system that can be built and fed or depleted. Practices such as planting cover crops in the off-season to protect the soil, reducing tillage, applying compost and rotating different types of crops can all help soil hold more water and support crops even during droughts.

A choice for consumers

Adapting on-farm practices addresses only part of the water conservation effort. While crops are grown in fields, they move through a vast network of processors, distributors, supermarkets and households before being eaten, wasted or lost. At each link in this chain, consumers’ choices determine how much agricultural water is ultimately saved.

People’s dietary preferences, in particular, play a major role in agricultural water use. Producing meat requires significantly more water than growing plant-based foods.

Per capita, Americans consume nearly three times the global average amount of meat each year.

While eliminating meat altogether is not everyone’s goal, even modest shifts in diet, whether reducing overall meat consumption or selecting proteins that use less water to produce, can ease the strain. Producing a pound of beef requires an estimated 1,800 gallons of water, compared with about 500 gallons for a pound of chicken.

Replacing all meat with the equivalent quantities of plant-based foods with comparable nutrition profiles could cut the average American’s food-related water use by nearly 30%. Even replacing a small amount of meat with plant-based foods or meats that require less water can make a difference.

While a single meal may seem inconsequential, if multiplied across millions of households these choices translate into meaningful water savings.

Discarded food and plant waste sits in a pile. — How much water did it take to grow all this discarded food?
Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images

A second savings opportunity

Perhaps the simplest and most powerful step people can take to save water used in agriculture is to cut back on food waste.

In the United States, 22% of total water use is tied to producing food that ultimately goes uneaten.

In developing countries, losses often result from limited storage and transportation, but in high-income nations like the United States, most waste happens at the retail and household level. In the U.S., households alone account for nearly 50% of all food discarded nationwide.

This creates a major opportunity for everyone to contribute to water conservation. Understanding the water embedded in different foods can make people more mindful about what ends up in the trash.

And on top of feeling good about helping the environment, there’s a financial reward: Wasting less food also means saving the money spent on food that would have gone to waste.

Huma Tariq Malik receives funding from USDA.

Thomas Borch receives funding from NSF, USDA, and NOAA.

– ref. 2 ways you can conserve the water used to make your food – https://theconversation.com/2-ways-you-can-conserve-the-water-used-to-make-your-food-267501

November 4, 2025

Oklahoma tried out a test to ‘woke-proof’ the classroom. It was short-lived, but could still leave a mark

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Emery Petchauer, Visiting Professor, Teachers College, Columbia University

Oklahoma’s short-lived PragerU teacher assessment was one of the final projects under former Superintendent Ryan Walters, who resigned in September 2025. eyegelb/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Oklahoma has become a testing ground for reshaping public school curriculum to reflect conservative viewpoints, Make America Great Again priorities and a push for Christian nationalism in the classroom.

Oklahoma’s former state education Superintendent Ryan Walters oversaw several controversial education policies in recent years, including mandating in 2024 that all Oklahoma public teachers incorporate the Bible into their lesson plans.

Walters resigned from his position in September 2025 to lead Teacher Freedom Alliance, a conservative advocacy group that opposes teachers unions.

One unprecedented move Walters made was adopting a teacher assessment called The America-First Assessment, designed by PragerU, a conservative nonprofit media company. Walters said the purpose of this exam, which went live in August 2025, was to screen out “woke indoctrination.”

By authorizing this assessment, Walters signed off on a conservative and far-right political organization having a say in which prospective teachers from out of state receive their Oklahoma teaching licenses.

The exam was short-lived. Walters’ replacement, Lindel Fields, announced at the end of October 2025 that Oklahoma would no longer use this assessment. Fields also rescinded the Bible mandate for Oklahoma schools.

But other states could still adopt the exam, free of charge. The exam and its controversy offers a window into the current politicization of state education systems, this time with respect to the licensing of teachers.

As an education researcher, I have written about other teacher assessments and some of the issues surrounding them, such as screening out Black teachers.

Walter’s “anti-woke” teacher exam is a unique kind of experiment. The test was not made by a professional assessment company and does not legitimately assess professional knowledge related to the subjects teachers teach.

A white man with brown hair, a navy blazer and white shirt stands in front of an American flag and bows his head, alongside other people who stand near him. — Ryan Walters bows his head in prayer alongside the state’s Board of Education members in April 2023, during his time as Oklahoma’s education superintendent.
Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press

A politicized test for teachers

The America-First exam consists of 34 multiple-choice questions that ask about the U.S. Constitution, government, religious liberty, history and Supreme Court cases. One question asks, “What are the first three words of the Constitution?” Another question asks, “What does the Second Amendment protect?” Other questions inquire about gender and sex, with questions like, “What is the fundamental biological distinction between males and females?” and “Which chromosome pair determines biological sex in humans?”

Walters made the political purpose of the exam clear.

“We have to make sure that the teachers in our classrooms, as we’re recruiting these individuals, aren’t a bunch of woke, Marxist activists,” Walters said in August 2025.

Walters has also said the exam was designed to specifically root out liberal teacher applicants who might fill teacher vacancies in Oklahoma and bring progressive training on race and gender with them, or what Walters called “blue state indoctrination.”

When the test went live in August, it expanded to all teachers from other states trying to get a license to teach in Oklahoma.

An exam you cannot fail

The America-First Assessment is not like the typical licensure exams made by professional assessment companies. These other exams cover the specific subject matter teachers should know to do their job: math for math teachers, science for science teachers, and so on.

Instead of a subject-specific focus, the America-First Assessment is mostly aligned with President Donald Trump’s “America first” talking points, particularly through its focus on gender and sex.

The most striking aspect of the exam, however, is that it is impossible to fail. If you don’t know the first three words of the U.S. Constitution, you can guess answers until you get it right. In fact, the test will advance to the next question only after you register a correct answer. Everyone who finishes the test will get 100% correct.

As a result, as some observers have pointed out, the exam resembles a political ideology test and not a legitimate assessment of professional knowledge.

Unlike the SAT, which considers its content proprietary, legally protected information, many of the America-First Assessment questions are publicly available.

Further, unlike established exams such as the SAT and GRE, the America-First exam has no technical information about how it was designed or what the questions are supposed to measure. As a result, the exam resembles a “MAGA loyalty test,” according to American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

A conservative media company expands into teacher assessment

The America-First Assessment’s unique format and political content reflect the priorities of PragerU, the conservative media company that created it.

Conservative radio host Dennis Prager founded PragerU in 2009. The company produces educational and entertainment videos rooted in conservative ideology.

PragerU’s more than 5,000 online videos include short segments such as “Make Men Masculine Again,” “How Many Radical Islam Sleepers are in the United States?” and “America Was Founded on Freedom Not Slavery.” Prominent far-right influencers including Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk have appeared in videos.

PragerU’s primary YouTube page has more than 3.4 million subscribers.

Scholarly analysis of PragerU videos have found the content minimizes the impact of slavery and promotes misinformation on topics including climate change.

In its children’s video “Frederick Douglass: The Outspoken Abolitionist,” the fictionalized cartoon of Douglass warns children to “stay away from radicals” who want to change the American system rather than work within it. “Our system is wonderful, and our Constitution is a glorious liberty document. We just need to convince enough Americans to be true to it,” he concludes.

In 2021, the company launched PragerU Kids, an offshoot targeting school-age children and educators with lesson plans, worksheets and other learning materials tied to its videos. Some other states, including Florida, New Hampshire and Montana, have approved PragerU’s videos as curriculum for their public schools to consider using since 2023.

The company’s move into teacher assessments in 2025 expands its influence beyond curriculum into who can earn a teaching license.

A group of books are seen stacked together. — Copies of the Bible are displayed in August 2024 at the Bixby High School library in Bixby, Okla.
Joey Johnson/Associated Press

A possible strategy for other states

Both Walters and PragerU CEO Marissa Streit pitched the exam as an option for all “pro-America” states at its launch in August 2025. Some conservative policy analysts have also praised this strategy’s goals of ridding public schools of all “woke” teachers.

As a result, it is unlikely this is the last people will hear of PragerU or other private media companies trying to screen teachers.

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

– ref. Oklahoma tried out a test to ‘woke-proof’ the classroom. It was short-lived, but could still leave a mark – https://theconversation.com/oklahoma-tried-out-a-test-to-woke-proof-the-classroom-it-was-short-lived-but-could-still-leave-a-mark-266546

November 4, 2025

Singles’ Day is a $150B holiday in China. Here’s why I think ‘11/11’ will catch on in the US

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Peter McGraw, Professor of Marketing and Psychology, University of Colorado Boulder

On Nov. 11 each year, a curious holiday takes over China. What began among Nanjing University students in the 1990s as a tongue-in-cheek counter to Valentine’s Day has exploded into the world’s largest shopping event: Singles’ Day.

The date, 11/11, was chosen because the four ones resemble “bare sticks,” Chinese slang for singles. Today, the holiday generates more than US$150 billion in annual sales, exceeding those on Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day combined.

As a bachelor, behavioral economist and business school professor, I study how single living is transforming consumer behavior and market dynamics. My work has convinced me that Singles’ Day, or something like it, could resonate far beyond Asia. Here’s why.

A profitable solo boom, starting in Asia

The unmarried will soon make up the majority in many countries, and this shift is already reshaping culture and commerce across Asia.

It’s not a coincidence that Singles’ Day emerged in China. The country’s one-child policy, in effect from 1980 to 2015, led many families to prefer sons – creating a gender imbalance that left millions of men without potential female partners. At the same time, rising education and career opportunities have given many women the independence to forgo traditional marriage altogether.

You can see a similar pattern across East Asia. In Japan, single-person households now outnumber those of married couples with children. In South Korea, one-person households reached nearly 36% in 2023, the highest share on record. Together, these shifts are fueling what Japanese call “ohitorisama,” or the “party of one,” and what Koreans describe as “honjok,” or “alone tribe,” cultures: movements that celebrate independence and self-reliance.

Businesses across Asia have seized the opportunity, catering to independent lifestyles with offerings such as single-seat karaoke booths and movie theaters designed for solo patrons. Singles’ Day is a prime example of companies capitalizing on this shift.

Each year, retailers across Asia embrace the occasion with themed promotions, presales and limited-edition product launches. Companies such as Xiaomi release exclusive smartphones, while Nike introduces new sneakers every Singles’ Day. Even airlines have joined in: Singapore’s Jetstar Asia once offered 111,111 discounted seats, positioning solo travel as an empowering experience.

Singles’ Day 2024 saw unprecedented interest – and sales – outside of China, CNBC noted.

Singles’ Day channels massive spending power – reframing singlehood as something to celebrate rather than lament – and shows how a retail event can feed a cultural shift. In the U.S. and across much of the rest of the world, meanwhile, businesses remain wed to an outdated assumption: that marriage is everyone’s destiny. It’s not.

Single in America

Right now, half of American adults are unmarried, and half of those singles aren’t seeking a relationship.

In 1960, only 10% of American adults would remain single for life. Today, some forecasts show that 25% of millennials, who are now between 29 and 44, and 33% of Gen Z who are 13 to 28, will never marry. While the average age of first marriage was just 21 in 1960, today it has risen to 29.

Through my Solo project – which includes a book, podcast and TED talk – I explore how widely single people’s goals vary, both in relationships and beyond.

By understanding singles’ diverse goals and lifestyles, American businesses can gain a competitive edge with targeted communication, innovative products and tailored services. Singles aren’t a monolith. My research identifies four main types:

“Somedays” aspire to find “the one” and settle down. They are the group businesses usually market to.
“Just Mays” share that goal but aren’t waiting around for it – they’re investing in homes, traveling solo and pursuing independent ambitions in the meantime.
“New Ways” reject the idea that traditional marriage is the default, experimenting with models such as “living apart together,” polyamory or platonic partnerships.
“No Ways” are opting out of the dating market entirely. Most do so not out of bitterness but because they have more important goals – or because they simply enjoy single life.

This diversity matters. “Somedays” may respond to dating apps and matchmaking services. “Just Mays” and “New Ways” gravitate toward experiences, hobbies and personal growth. “No Ways” are alienated by romance-centric messaging and instead embrace autonomy and community.

To explore how Singles’ Day might be received in North America, I surveyed nearly 400 U.S. singles ages 24 to 59. The most common ways they said they’d celebrate were by finding a date, treating themselves to a gift or practicing self-care.

American companies and the solo economy

In many industries, a 2% demographic shift ought to trigger an all-hands marketing meeting. So how can the decades-long rise of single living still go largely overlooked by most companies in the U.S.?

To be fair, there have been glimmers of recognition in recent years. For example, in 2021, Visible Wireless repositioned its “family plans” to “friends and family plans without the family drama.” In 2024, Norwegian Cruise Line introduced studio cabins for solo travelers, tackling the long-standing and dreaded “single supplement.” Similarly, IKEA, after offering a Valentine’s dinner only for couples in 2024, pivoted this year to an inclusive promotion: “Bring a loved one, a good friend, or the whole family.”

But those are the exceptions rather than the rule. What should U.S. brands do to appeal to this growing market? Here’s my advice:

Rethink assumptions about dating and belonging. Not all singles seek romance. Create meaningful nonromantic experiences that reflect solo lifestyles – singles-themed events, community nights or “bring-a-friend (or don’t)” offers.
Segment by goals, not just age. A 25-year-old solo traveler and a 60-year-old empty-nester may both respond to a message about independence.
Tailor offerings for people who live – and do things – alone. The “rightsizing” trend is already underway: smaller grocery packs, single-serve meal kits, compact appliances and studio-friendly furniture. Travel and entertainment can follow suit with solo pricing, seating and perks that don’t penalize independence.

I teach my business students to ask, “Is there a market?” and “Can we serve it profitably?” The answers here are obvious. Singles are everywhere. They’re dining alone, traveling solo, buying homes and spending billions. And yet they remain largely overlooked in a world built for two.

The rise of Singles’ Day in Asia shows what happens when businesses take singles seriously: consumer innovation, cultural relevance and record-breaking profits. I expect the U.S. will follow – whether reluctantly or enthusiastically. The only question in my mind is: When?

I have a book (“Solo: Building a Remarkable Life of Your Own”) and a podcast (“Solo – The Single Person’s Guide to a Remarkable Life”) that are relevant to this article.

– ref. Singles’ Day is a $150B holiday in China. Here’s why I think ‘11/11’ will catch on in the US – https://theconversation.com/singles-day-is-a-150b-holiday-in-china-heres-why-i-think-11-11-will-catch-on-in-the-us-266566