Category: The Conversation – UK

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Renaud Foucart, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University

Iran’s military might was never going to be a match for the US and Israel. So instead it turned to the highly effective weapon it has at its disposal – geography.

Blocking off the Strait of Hormuz has shaken the global economy. It has doubled the price of a barrel of crude oil, which has a knock-on effect on the price the rest of the world pays for everything from fuel to heating and food to holidays.

It also made Donald Trump have a rethink. The world is now waiting to see what happens next in a stretch of water which carries around 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas.

For Iran, the Strait of Hormuz has been an extremely valuable geopolitical asset. And its surprisingly strong negotiating position demonstrates a classic principle of game theory, the mathematical study of strategic interactions.

This principle, sometimes referred to as Rubinstein bargaining, basically says that during a conflict, each side’s strength depends on two things: how badly off it would be without a resolution, and how impatient it is to get things resolved.

Iran will certainly be badly off if the war continues, using up its stockpiles of missiles and drones while its infrastructure gets bombed. But dictatorships can afford to be patient, crushing dissent if it arises.

For the US, continuing with the conflict means spending billions more taxpayer dollars on those bombs, while a blocked-off Strait of Hormuz risks more rises in the price of fuel paid by American motorists. With midterm elections coming up in November, perhaps the White House will lose patience quickly.

The Strait of Hormuz, then, has played an enormous role in the conflict so far. The US’s position is much weaker than first thought because of a stretch of water the world can’t do without.

Game theory suggests that to achieve a position of strength, countries and regions need to come up with their own version of the strait – something others need which will strengthen their negotiating position.

It doesn’t have to be a shipping route, of course. China’s version could be its global dominance in manufacturing. It would be very hard for most countries to live without the things China makes.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s strength is its natural resources, such as most of the world’s cobalt being mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the future, it may also be able to leverage the fact it is the last continent with a young and growing population, while the rest of the world is rapidly ageing.

The EU’s strength, meanwhile, has been the size of its united single market. It has been able to leverage this market to get preferential treatment, protecting its produce and exports. It also managed to impose European standards on food and products across the world.

But the EU’s strength is by no means guaranteed. Most economic growth is now expected to come from the likes of China, India or Indonesia, weakening Europe’s negotiating position. Research suggests the only way to get some of this strength back is to integrate European markets even more, and to enlarge the EU further.

This is also why the UK will soon probably return to the European single market, one way or another. Brexit has considerably weakened the international negotiating position of both the UK and EU.

Strait and narrow

Having a version of the Strait of Hormuz seems especially important now that alliances and divisions have become much less clear. Old alliances and promises have lost a lot of their meaning.

The US has threatened to leave Nato, and said it would annex Canada and Greenland. Both it and Russia have jointly campaigned for the failed re-election of Viktor Orbán in Hungary.

But in a world without reliable alliances, all countries are interdependent. Supply chains are so interconnected that a small change in one country can have a major impact on the other side of the world. Oil tankers not moving near Iran could mean no pork sausages in UK grocery stores this summer.

In these circumstances, game theory tells us that success requires two things: not relying on a single partner, and offering something that others cannot do without. When everything is about leverage, power comes from being impossible to ignore.

The countries that will thrive in the next decades will be those which manage to establish their own version of the Strait of Hormuz. And make sure they never need to sail through anyone else’s.

Renaud Foucart 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. The Strait of Hormuz shows how everything is now about leverage – https://theconversation.com/the-strait-of-hormuz-shows-how-everything-is-now-about-leverage-280048

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Charlotte Gislam, Researcher in Game Studies, University of Salford

To receive a nomination at the Bafta Game Awards is to be placed amongst the very best video games developed each year. This year’s ceremony saw 42 games nominated, demonstrating a wide range of gaming excellence. Among the nominees were designers, voice actors and composers, each contributing to the validation of video games as a cultural form.

Now in their 22nd year, the awards took place on April 17 in London where outstanding achievement in animation went to Dispatch, with Lego Party awarded best family game, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 best narrative, and the coveted best overall game gong going to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

For the winners, awards can result in boosted sales. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 saw more than 92,000 copies sold overnight following the awards. The win adds to the game’s overwhelming success story both economically and culturally since its release in April 2025. Such accolades not only translate to individual success, they also gain legitimacy for the game industry as a whole. So how can an awards show aid an entire medium?

Part of the answer lies in how awards shape cultural perception, not just commercial success. Regardless of their aesthetics and storytelling prowess, video games are still considered by many as being an example of “low culture”. The Bafta awards have been one way to challenge this perception, offering a prestigious arena for celebration and recognition.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a British arts charity that has been in operation since 1947 with a mission to “advance the art and technique of film”. The first film awards were held in 1949, with TV awards introduced in 1955. Games first gained recognition within the respected Bafta tradition in 2004.

A video game can take years of work to develop and requires the collaboration of many creatives across a variety of disciplines. Writers, artists, animators, programmers, sound designers, voice actors and musicians are all part of the process.

Bafta runs initiatives such as scholarships, mentorships and programmes for young game designers. Celebrating video games with the annual awards show makes a statement that the medium is as worthy as film or television in terms of cultural contribution.

How does recognition impact the industry?

Legitimacy is often accompanied by economic support at a regional, national and international level. The more video games are considered culturally valuable, the more governments and art charities are interested in investing in them.

However, video game development is currently risky, with thousands of layoffs this year so far. Young graduates looking for an entry role may not find much available even with large developers like Epic Games which laid off 1,000 workers in March, attributed to a downturn in Fortnite engagement that began in 2025.

Initiatives to support studios entering the industry have increased in frequency and monetary value since 2015 with the creation of the UK Games Fund (UKGF). The support programme started with a £4 million prototype fund to help small developers produce working mock-ups of ideas to show investors. Funding is vital for the development of the industry as it allows creatives to take risks with the medium without risking their livelihoods.

Economic support initiatives create positive feedback loops where developers have the freedom to advance the art and technique of games and then see their work acknowledged through awards. This subsequently raises the profile of video games to funders.

This year the Baftas follow an increase to the funding available for British game studios from the UK government. As part of the opening of the London Games Festival – a week of talks and demonstrations from the UK games industry held every April – the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport announced a £30 million “power up” for the UK games industry.

Grants from the fund will be split into three categories. Up to £20,000 is available to invest in newly formed companies, with £100,000 for the prototyping of new games and £250,000 to aid with completing games and helping established studios expand.

The Bafta Game Awards have been a key part of the festival’s programme since its inception in 2016. The money, announced just as the best of global video games are being celebrated, will be used to support next generation of exciting young video game developers.

Charlotte Gislam is part of GAMEMHEARTS which is supported by the European Union Horizon Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 101132543

Neta Yodovich is part of GAMEMHEARTS which is supported by the European Union Horizon Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 101132543.

– ref. How Bafta helped elevate the video game to a respected art form worthy of celebration – https://theconversation.com/how-bafta-helped-elevate-the-video-game-to-a-respected-art-form-worthy-of-celebration-281184

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nathan Critch, Research Associate, Department of Politics, University of Manchester

Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US keeps coming back to haunt him. It has now emerged that Mandelson was granted security clearance by the Foreign Office, despite concerns raised during the
vetting process. Top Foreign Office civil servant Olly Robbins was sacked over these revelations.

Mandelson was controversial long before Starmer appointed him in 2024. A New Labour figure known as the “prince of darkness” due to his reputation as an adept but often ruthless and underhand political operator, Mandelson had already been embroiled in a number of scandals involving allegations of corruption. He was also known to have had a close relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as close business links in China.

Starmer fired him in September 2025 after emails were released showing Mandelson offering supportive messages to Epstein, who faced charges of soliciting a minor at the time. Further emails released by US officials suggested that Mandelson might have passed privileged and market-sensitive information to Epstein during the fallout of the financial crisis. In February 2026, the former ambassador was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He has denied criminal wrongdoing and has not been charged.

Therefore, it is perhaps unsurprising that Mandelson did not pass the vetting process carried out by the Cabinet Office’s UK Security Vetting team. Almost all civil servants are required to go through some form of vetting. But as a top diplomat, Mandelson was subject to the most intensive form of scrutiny. From what is known about the process, red flags were probably raised about Mandelson’s links with Chinese and Russian business interests, though the exact details have not been made public.

Starmer and his allies have argued that Robbins did not tell the prime minister about concerns raised in the vetting process as he should have. In giving evidence to MPs, Robbins said that Number 10 took a “dismissive” approach to the vetting process. He also said that he was under “constant pressure” to approve Mandelson’s clearance due to this being a political priority for Starmer. Mandelson’s appointment was announced publicly before the vetting took place.

The opposition is piling on the pressure for Starmer to resign. But behind speculation about the prime minister’s future stands a deeper set of constitutional questions about accountability and standards in public life.

From Starmer’s perspective, the scandal has revealed a pressing need to improve the independent scrutiny of appointments. He has ordered a review into vetting procedures, and argued that failings lie with civil servants in the FCDO and with the robustness of vetting processes – not with him.

On one level, this defence is an effort to deflect blame. Yet the response also fits with Starmer’s approach to politics as a follower of rules and lover of process.

In arguing for a more robust independent process around vetting in their attempts to avoid blame, Starmer and his allies invoke a longstanding critique of Whitehall culture. This view treats independent, depoliticised scrutiny and checks and balances as key missing links in British politics. Building these would be vital for ensuring transparency and accountability around appointments and politics more broadly.

Since coming to office, Starmer has consistently argued for a rewiring of the British state to modernise the government. Like academics, thinktanks, journalists and former Whitehall insiders before him, Starmer’s view suggests that Whitehall and the centre of the British state operate in an antiquated way. When it comes to accountability and standards, the government arguably lacks proper independent scrutiny and constitutional checks and balances to hold decision-makers to account.

Instead, Whitehall is too reliant on a “good chaps theory of government”, which suggests politicians typically act with the best of intentions and therefore do not need to be subject to independent scrutiny.

Who is responsible?

Critics, echoing Robbins’ testimony, have argued that Starmer and his allies pressed Mandelson’s ambassadorship as a political priority, announcing it before vetting procedures had been completed in order to push through the appointment.

Many have pointed out that Mandelson’s reputation as a potentially suspect character was well known before the release of the Epstein files. Within this narrative, blame for the appointment of Mandelson lies squarely with Starmer.

In a sense, this approach offers a different view of British politics. In terms of appointments – both to top civil service positions and to more political posts – the UK’s approach has been argued to resemble medieval “court politics”. Here, the ruler decides their key advisers on the basis of their own preferences and objectives.

This too implies a lack of proper checks and balances around appointments. But one of the proposed advantages of such a system is that it places accountability and responsibility for decisions clearly in the hands of elected politicians. Britain has a longstanding tradition of individual ministerial accountability.

Starmer, however, is now seemingly weakening this tradition by deflecting blame onto the civil service and its processes. It is this notion of direct political accountability that Starmer’s opponents are invoking when they call for his resignation.

Overall, these two images of British politics are contradictory and indicative of the emergence of an increasingly incoherent form of government. On the one hand, the state has failed to move towards modern and robust independent scrutiny of ministerial decision-making around appointments. On the other hand, politics has shifted away from a culture of clear, individual ministerial accountability.

This leaves Britain in a “worst of both worlds” scenario when it comes to accountability and standards in public life. It has neither robust independent scrutiny, nor clear lines of political accountability. More than anything, the Mandelson vetting scandal reveals the need to fix this broken system.

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. Mandelson vetting scandal: why Whitehall is the worst of all worlds when it comes to accountability – https://theconversation.com/mandelson-vetting-scandal-why-whitehall-is-the-worst-of-all-worlds-when-it-comes-to-accountability-281159

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jim Smith, Professor of Environmental Science, University of Portsmouth

“Dogs at Chernobyl are now genetically distinct … thanks to years of exposure to ionizing radiation, study finds.”

That’s just one of many similar headlines that appeared in response to a scientific study published a few years back. They present a compelling story of radiation, mutation and survival against the odds.

But the underlying science didn’t actually show any genetic differences were caused by radiation. The idea of “radioactive dogs of Chernobyl” is better understood as a modern scientific myth. Indeed, our appetite for scare stories about mutant animals is obscuring the reality: the most significant and fascinating thing about the animals there is the absence of humans, not the presence of radiation.

Forty years after the Chernobyl explosion, the controversy over how the accident affected people and ecosystems goes on. I’ve been studying the environmental impacts of the disaster since I began my PhD research in 1990 on radioactive fallout in the English Lake District. Scientists have learned a lot since then, with thousands of studies published.

But the mainstream and social media remain rife with misinformation and exaggeration about the accident’s effects. Scientists often blame the media for this, but maybe we should put some of the blame on ourselves.

Radioactive dogs make a great story

The Chernobyl disaster tapped into our enduring fascination with radiation and mutation, with all sorts of claims being made about damaged wildlife and mutant animals in the exclusion zone. But clear scientific evidence for significant long-term radiation effects is surprisingly hard to find.

Research on the feral dogs of Chernobyl, published in the highly regarded journal Science Advances in 2023, is just one of many examples. Go through any checkpoint in the zone and you’ll see at least a couple of dogs hanging around waiting for scraps from guards or visitors. The study found genetic differences between dogs living at the power plant and those living further away.

The authors themselves do not explicitly say that the differences they find were due to radiation. However, to the casual reader it is difficult not to draw that conclusion from the paper and accompanying press release.

The press release overstated the link to radiation. It suggested that the dogs “may be genetically distinct due to varying levels of radiation exposure” and said they are experiencing “high and continuous environmental assault” – claims not supported by the evidence.

Even experienced science journalists would find it hard not to be influenced by that framing. As a scientist who has worked on radiation issues and Chernobyl for decades, it took me a long time to read and understand all the relevant papers and conclude that the hype was in no way supported by the evidence.

What the science actually said

The genetic differences are real. But, given the relatively low radiation doses in most of the zone, more plausible explanations include differences in initial breed types and factors such as habitat, nutrition and disease. With only three populations to study, it’s very difficult to separate any radiation effect from these other important factors.

Yet in media coverage, this became a story about radiation driving rapid evolutionary change in just a few generations. That interpretation is not supported by the available evidence.

As the great science communicator Carl Sagan put it: “Extraordinary results require extraordinary evidence.” Yet a previous study showed that only four out of 198 dogs studied at Chernobyl had contamination levels higher than those seen in sheep, wild boar and reindeer in parts of western Europe in the years after the accident.

There are some radiation “hot spots” in the zone, but the dogs tend to stay near people working at the reactor site or living in the town. The rest of the zone is now effectively a nature reserve where wolves and other large predators roam freely.

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Read more:
40 years on from the disaster, why there are foxes, bears and bison again around Chernobyl

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In the media’s telling, radiation doses well below established thresholds for damage to animal populations are driving such strong natural selection that radiation resistant breeds are evolving. The science behind the story does not provide clear evidence – extraordinary or otherwise – to support this claim.

Misleading science stories have real world impact

Chernobyl remains a globally symbolic landscape. It shapes debates about nuclear risk, environmental resilience and even future energy policy. Yet research there is repeatedly clouded by stories that emphasise dramatic but weakly supported claims.

The more interesting truth is that ecosystems in the exclusion zone are complex, surprisingly resilient and shaped more by the absence of humans than by long term radiation exposure.

The accident undoubtedly had profound impacts on people, including a rise in thyroid cancer, though long-term radiation health effects have often been hard to find statistically. A major UN-backed report 20 years after the accident concluded that the biggest public health impacts were socio-economic and mental health problems. Even today, many people in northern Ukraine and southern Belarus live with very low-level radiation but continue to believe it poses a serious danger.

Stories of radioactive dogs play into those fears. As scientists, we owe it to the public to communicate our science more responsibly.

Jim Smith is founder and shareholder in The Chernobyl Spirit Community Interest Company, a social enterprise making safe spirits from Chernobyl affected areas. He has in the past (>10 years ago) done small consultancy projects for government organisations and the private sector. He does not currently do consultancy work or have any links to the nuclear industry.

– ref. Chernobyl’s wildlife: the real story isn’t the presence of radiation – it’s the absence of humans – https://theconversation.com/chernobyls-wildlife-the-real-story-isnt-the-presence-of-radiation-its-the-absence-of-humans-281084

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Susanne Masters, PhD Candidate, Institute of Biology, Leiden University

Each spring, the meadows and hillsides of the Mediterranean draw tourists to admire flowering orchids. But in some regions, these astonishing blooms are steadily declining – or at risk of disappearing altogether.

Collection for trade is depleting these wild orchids. It’s not their flowers but their tubers that have most value. Tubers are underground storage organs that sustain plant growth and development. Harvesting them effectively kills the plant.

International trade in orchids is strictly regulated, although national regulations vary. Lack of monitoring makes it difficult to assess the scale of trade, but it is probably much higher than officially reported.

Orchid tubers have been collected from the wild in the eastern Mediterranean region – from Greece to Turkey – for centuries. Dried and powdered, they are the defining ingredient of both a hot drink called salep and maraş dondurma, a type of ice-cream.

Today, salep is not only available at local herbal shops and supermarkets. It is sold globally and online, causing salep harvests and sales to expand across a larger region than ever before. In combination with other threats such as climate change and habitat loss, this growing trade threatens to eradicate orchid populations.

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Read more:
Famous monkey-face ‘Dracula’ orchids are vanishing in the wild

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Using historical collections of salep kept in museums plus samples from current trade, our new study has mapped the species of orchid collected for its production, and their regions of origin, over the last two centuries.

By extracting and sequencing their DNA, we showed that the market for salep is not just growing – it is transforming. More and more species are being harvested across larger regions and during longer harvesting seasons.

From the early 19th century to the mid-20th century, salep was made predominantly from early purple orchid (Orchis mascula). Now, a broader mixture of orchids is used, including green-winged orchid (Anacamptis morio) and early marsh orchid (Dactylorhiza incarnata).

But early purple orchid is still collected for salep in Eastern Iran – a region where salep is not traditionally consumed and where orchid tuber collecting is a relatively new business. This shows that a preference for salep made from orchids and not substitutes persists. However, orchids are now harder to find, partly due to increased demand and possibly declining abundance of these flowers in the wild. As a result, the frontier of salep trade has been pushed eastward into new territories.

“In Iran, orchid harvesting is mainly for export purposes,” explains Abdolbaset Ghorbani, a researcher at Uppsala University and co-author on our study.

During fieldwork in Iran, he noticed that orchid tubers are not commonly known as salep but rather “mountain potatoes”. “This name was coined by locals in the northeast, as orchid tuber harvesting was new to them and most people were not familiar with salep or its uses.”

Our findings mirror patterns observed in Greece, where salep is now harvested less by local communities and increasingly sourced from outside the country.

At the same time, in areas where salep consumption is common, it is increasingly supplied through other means. People are not only turning to different species of orchid, but they are doing so at lower elevations than the traditionally harvested mountain species – possibly to make a wider repertoire of substitutes more accessible.

The risk of extinction that more intensive harvesting brings to these orchids can be seen in their tuber size. By measuring more than a thousand tubers collected over two centuries, we discovered that the size of salep tubers has been steadily declining, regardless of the species concerned. A reduction in harvested body or organ size is a classic symptom of overexploitation, and can be an early warning signal of population collapse.

Ghorbani notes that dwindling orchid populations may lead to a further shift in collection efforts: “I think that now, after some years, as orchids have become scarce in the region, the trade has also decreased.”

He adds that it is also possible that collectors have started moving into new areas, such as protected nature reserves, to collect orchid tubers: “Perhaps harvesting has expanded even further east into central Asian countries that have not yet been exploited, in order to meet the demand for tubers.”

If this trend persists, orchid blooms may become a rare sight not just across the eastern Mediterranean region, but parts of Asia as well.

Putting protection in place

To protect orchids from the risks of overexploitation and trade, orchid material should not be internationally traded without permits. However, trade regulations are poorly enforced and don’t address the problem of domestic trade. Increased compliance with international trade regulations is therefore necessary to curb the salep trade, but can only be a partial solution.

Other measures are necessary to satisfy the growing demand for salep. Consumers could turn from wild to cultivated sources, a practice still in its infancy but with a promising outlook for sustainable production of salep.

Sustainable standards such as FairWild can guide the legal harvest of small amounts salep that do not harm orchid survival. Both options depend on increased consumer awareness and the right market incentives.

As the trade and extinction of edible orchids is a global problem, effective solutions require international coordination. Global initiatives such as the Illegal Plant Trade Coalition can help disseminate knowledge of the risks of unrestricted harvest and trade, and promote existing alternatives.

Such efforts will not only serve to protect the precious sight of flowering orchids in spring, but also the treasures they keep underground – and the traditions they support.

Susanne Masters is affiliated with IUCN SSC Orchid Specialist Group.

Margret Veltman has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 765000
Margret Veltman is affiliated with the IUCN SSC Orchid Specialist Group.

– ref. Edible orchids are being overharvested in the Mediterranean – how to protect these astonishing blooms – https://theconversation.com/edible-orchids-are-being-overharvested-in-the-mediterranean-how-to-protect-these-astonishing-blooms-279495

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Kirsten Stevens-Wood, Senior Lecturer, Cardiff Metropolitan University

As conflict intensifies in the Middle East, energy markets swing wildly and the cost of living keeps climbing, a pressing question is emerging for anyone who is tied in to the fluctuating energy and food markets: how do we build resilience?

Big political and economic solutions still matter. But they take time. Increasingly, attention is turning closer to home, and to communities themselves.

Among these, intentional communities – once seen as niche – stand out as an increasingly viable option. Intentional communities are groups of people that share land and resources collectively. They can include cohousing and housing cooperatives as well as other projects. These communities do not constitute an escape from the world, but a way of coping with it. In some cases, they are already softening the shocks of global instability.

One of the most visible consequences of conflict in the Middle East is felt in energy bills at home. Disruptions to oil and gas supply chains push up fuel prices. That ripples through everything like transport, food and heating. In the UK, households feel it quickly.

But some intentional communities are less exposed. They have changed how they produce and use energy. At Bridport Cohousing in Dorset, residents share heating systems and generate solar power. On the Isle of Eigg in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, the entire island runs on a community-owned electricity system powered by wind, water and sun.

Of course, these systems don’t make communities immune to wider pressures. But they can cushion the blow by lowering bills and reducing dependence on volatile global markets.

Rising energy prices feed directly into food, housing and everyday costs. For many households, the pressure is relentless. Intentional communities respond differently. They pool resources. Food is often bought in bulk or grown collectively. Meals are shared. Housing is organised cooperatively, which can help to bring down rents and mortgages.

While pooling resources doesn’t eliminate costs, it can spread them. And that makes a difference, especially for those on tight or fixed incomes.

Social resilience in uncertain times

Resilience isn’t just financial. Intentional communities can also help buffer the psychological and social effects of living in times of conflict or uncertainty.

The pandemic offered a glimpse of this. While many people experienced isolation, collaborative housing communities often mobilised quickly because support networks were already in place.

A 2023 study of 18 intentional communities in England and Wales found they were able to quickly build on their existing and well-established social infrastructure. Regular contact, shared decision-making and mutual support helped people cope. In uncertain times, that kind of connection matters. It reduces isolation and makes crises easier to navigate.

One example was an older women’s cohousing group near London who set up online movie and book review clubs, as well as regularly sharing homegrown food from their communal allotment.

Disrupted fuel supplies – as we have seen in the recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz – can have cascading effects on agricultural production and food distribution. This can lead to price increases and occasional shortages.

Many intentional communities try to buffer against this by growing their own food. Small-scale farming, permaculture and community gardens are common.

For example, the Redfield community in north Buckinghamshire grow much of their own food, as well as keeping chickens, a small flock of sheep and bees on their 17 acres of land. This increases self-sufficiency, meaning they are less exposed to global disruptions. It also builds skills – knowledge that often spreads beyond the community itself through friends, family and even courses on growing, permaculture and self sufficiency.

None of this makes intentional communities self-contained utopias. They still rely on wider systems. Renewable energy infrastructure requires investment, for example. Skills and resources are uneven, which means that no community is fully insulated from global crises. But that may not be the point.

What sets these communities apart is not independence, but adaptability. They spread risk and diversify how needs are met in terms of energy, food, housing and care. And systems that are more diverse tend to be more resilient.

Intentional communities are, in effect, testing grounds. They show what happens when people reorganise everyday life around cooperation rather than individual consumption. Some of their ideas, like shared ownership, local energy and community food networks are already spreading beyond them into local and national government policy, builders and architects and wider community groups.

Kirsten Stevens-Wood 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. What intentional communities can teach us about resilience amid global instability – https://theconversation.com/what-intentional-communities-can-teach-us-about-resilience-amid-global-instability-280635

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Max Carter-Brown, Lecturer, Evolutionary Biology, Anglia Ruskin University

I’m standing in a deconsecrated church in Lambeth, London, now home to the Garden Museum. It has a warm and pleasant atmosphere, undeniably a church, yet far removed from its original purpose. On this quiet Friday morning, I met with Emma House, the lead curator of the exhibition Seeds of Exchange. We wandered around the exhibit, which is deceptively small for the scale of its story, crossing continents, cultures, languages and time.

Seeds of Exchange: Canton and London in the 1700s tells a story that is both local and global. It centres on a short-lived but remarkable collaboration between an English botanist and his Chinese counterparts. Together, they documented the plant life of Canton (modern-day Guangzhou) at a time when global trade, science and empires were becoming deeply entangled.

As a botanist I love plants – but this story is not only about them. It is about how knowledge moves, and who gets to shape it.

A meeting point of worlds

The late 18th century was a period of carefully controlled contact between China and Europe. Trade with the outside world in China was tightly regulated through licensed Chinese merchant guilds. Foreign traders could only operate during part of the year.

Into this system stepped John Bradby Blake, an employee of the British East India Company in the early 18th century.

Like many of his contemporaries, he was not simply a passive participant in imperial trade. The East India Company allowed its agents a degree of personal enterprise, and Blake – having suffered substantial financial losses in tea speculation – turned to botany as both scientific pursuit and potential commercial opportunity.

His project was ambitious: to catalogue Chinese plants in what he envisioned as a Compleat Chinensis (Complete Chinese). Between 1766 and his death in 1773, he commissioned over 150 botanical paintings, documenting many now familiar plant species, ranging from citrus fruits and camellias to turmeric and jackfruit.

What makes this project particularly striking is that it was not a solitary European endeavour. Blake relied heavily on local expertise, as he did not know the flora and did not speak Mandarin.

Mak Sau, a Chinese artist about whom we know very little, produced detailed botanical paintings that form the heart of this exhibition. These works are scientific documents, capturing colour and structure with fantastic precision. But they are also superb works of art and form a historically important collection of early botanically accurate watercolour paintings in China.

Local knowledge also helped identify species that Blake himself struggled to classify. Whang At Tong, Blake’s Chinese counterpart, was a merchant operating within the Canton system. He facilitated the exchange of materials, knowledge and, eventually, the transport of Blake’s collection back to Britain. The endeavour was, in many ways, a shared intellectual enterprise. Yet it unfolded within an unequal system shaped by imperial trade and economic ambition.

Plants, profit and empire

Many of the plants depicted in Seeds of Exchange hint at the economic motivations behind Blake’s work. Tea, citrus species, indigo and medicinal plants all had clear commercial value. Others carried horticultural interest that would later shape European gardens.

Blake cultivated plants in his own Canton garden, experimenting with germination and growth and sending seeds back to Britain. These botanical exchanges contributed, in small but significant ways, to breaking China’s monopoly on certain crops – particularly tea.

Yet the paintings also reveal a more complex botanical landscape. Some species, such as chilli peppers and watermelon, were themselves recent arrivals to China (from South America and Africa respectively).

Even in the 18th century, plant distributions were already shaped by centuries of movement across continents. Today, the movement of plants across the world is on a monumental scale, driven by crops and horticulture. The exhibition quietly reminds us that “native” and “foreign” are often more fluid categories than we assume.

Blake’s death in 1773 brought the project to an abrupt halt. He never completed his Compleat Chinensis, and his work might easily have faded into obscurity. Instead, Whang At Tong transported the collection to London, where it entered elite scientific circles. He is one of the earliest recorded Chinese people to have come to the UK. He met figures such as Joseph Banks, a central figure in British botany, and even sat for a portrait by Joshua Reynolds – a rare moment of cultural visibility for a Chinese visitor in 18th-century Britain. The Reynolds painting is in the exhibit, and exquisitely done.

Despite this, the botanical paintings themselves were never fully integrated into British science. Seeds were sent to Kew, but the visual and documentary archive remained largely unused. Over time, the collection became physically divided. One portion, consisting of manuscripts and herbals (historical books describing the properties of plants), ended up, remarkably, in Canterbury Cathedral. Another, including many of the paintings, passed through the art market before being acquired by the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia in the 20th century.

Reuniting the past

Seeds of Exchange marks the first time these materials have been brought back together in over two centuries. Seen together, the paintings, herbals, notebooks and maps reveal a network of knowledge production that was collaborative, cross-cultural and contingent. Recent research indicates that Blake mainly used texts by European authors for identification, however the exhibition shows Chinese floras which were used in the work, highlighting the depth of local contribution.

The exhibition also sits within a broader historical context. The Garden Museum itself stands on land once associated with early botanical collectors such as the Tradescant family, whose 17th-century “cabinet of curiosities” helped lay the foundations of modern museums. From these early collections to Blake’s Canton project, the gathering and classification of plants has long been tied to exploration, trade and power.

What, then, does this exhibition tell us today? At one level, it is a fascinating story of early globalisation. But it also prompts deeper questions about authorship and recognition. Projects like Blake’s were often framed as European achievements, even when they depended heavily on local knowledge and labour.

Seeds of Exchange highlights that scientific knowledge has almost always been co-produced, even if the historical record has not always acknowledged this. In an era when museums and collections are increasingly reexamining their collections and histories, this matters.

Like the plants it documents, the knowledge this exhibition represents has travelled, adapted and taken root in new contexts – and we are still tracing its origins more than two centuries on.

Seeds of Exchange: Canton and London in the 1700s is at the Garden Museum in London until May 10 2026

Max Carter-Brown 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. Seeds of Exchange reveals the untold story of the plant collectors who connected Canton and London in the 18th century – https://theconversation.com/seeds-of-exchange-reveals-the-untold-story-of-the-plant-collectors-who-connected-canton-and-london-in-the-18th-century-281057

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrew Gawthorpe, Lecturer in History and International Studies, Leiden University

When Donald Trump deported a group of Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador in 2025, it was the fulfilment of a long-held wish. Across both of his administrations Trump has pushed officials to find ways to brutalise immigrants, particularly those who are undocumented, believing that doing so will deter others from making the trip.

The Venezuelan nationals were destined for El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, known as Cecot. When they arrived, according to a Human Rights Watch report, they were subjected to systematic beatings, sexual abuse and psychological duress.

The Trump administration amplified reports of conditions in the prison. Trump’s former homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, for example, filmed a video inside Cecot in 2025 in which she thanked El Salvador for “bringing our terrorists here and incarcerating them”.

Trump’s deportations were a chilling sign of how easy it is for US presidents to sidestep the constitution. If Cecot were in the US, it would be recognised as a site of illegal abuses. The constitution’s protection against “cruel and unusual punishments” would cause judges to order it shut down – and it is likely that political outrage would not cease until that order was followed.

Yet by making an agreement with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, Trump managed to get around these legal and political obstacles. In a recent paper, I explored how Trump’s deportations are part of a broader pattern of what I call “presidential extra-territorialization” – American presidents acting in or through a foreign jurisdiction to circumvent the US constitution.

There is a long-term pattern of cooperation between presidents from both the Republican and Democratic parties and the leaders of foreign countries. It is a pattern that could have grave implications for the future of US democracy.

Outsourcing abuses

The ability of US presidents to engage in this outsourcing of abuses is rooted in two things. First, their control over the vast capabilities of the modern executive branch, with its array of spies, soldiers and law enforcement officials. And second, control over US diplomacy, which is enshrined in Supreme Court precedent.

In 1936, the court ruled that the president is “the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations”. This has commonly been interpreted as meaning US presidents cannot be constrained by the other branches of government when conducting diplomacy.

Combined, these factors mean presidents face fewer constraints in foreign affairs than in the domestic realm. They are able to avoid oversight from the courts and Congress by keeping agreements with other governments secret and by acting too fast to be stopped. If they can find just one foreign government willing to enable them, then what is not possible at home suddenly becomes possible overseas.

This lack of constraint was evident in Trump’s deportations. The US government sent the men to El Salvador despite a last-minute ruling by a federal court ordering their return.

And once they were in El Salvador, the Trump administation claimed it was no longer responsible for them and could not be expected to bring them back. The Supreme Court stepped in to pause further such deportations, but only weeks after the fact.

Other examples of the power and flexibility of extra-territorialization became apparent during the “war on terror”, when successive US presidents faced the issue of where to send detainees who were suspected terrorists.

If they were brought to the US, they would have had constitutional rights and could not have been tortured or indefinitely imprisoned. So presidents from Bill Clinton in the 1990s onward established a series of agreements with other countries to take and mistreat them instead.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the Bush administration established a series of “black sites” in countries such as Poland, Thailand and Romania in which to hold detainees in secret. Abuses were committed directly by US agents, but still beyond the reach of US courts. The administration held prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba too, another place where the constitution’s reach was limited.

Presidents can also shift territory in response to attempts to constrain their actions. When the US Supreme Court ruled that detainees at Guantanamo Bay had to be afforded certain rights in 2008, the Obama administration transferred some detainees to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Bagram was not covered by the Supreme Court ruling.

As a US court of appeals noted in 2010, the ability to shift territories so easily seemed to allow the administration to “switch the constitution on or off at will”.

Yet another example of extra-territorialization is the “Five Eyes” intelligence agreement between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and US. As part of this pact, members have been reported to spy on each other’s citizens – an outsourcing of surveillance that allows each to circumvent domestic privacy constraints.

The fact that Trump has engaged in extra-territorialization so openly, in contrast to previous administrations who tried to keep it hidden, is a stark warning.

Even when the president said he was exploring a proposal to send US citizens to Cecot in April 2025, he received little pushback from within his own party. This suggests they have accepted it as a legitimate strategy to achieve policy goals.

In the hyper-polarised atmosphere of contemporary US politics, extra-territorialization is threatening to become a regular tool of governance. To stop that from happening, it is vital to expose and confront it. But first we must understand it.

Andrew Gawthorpe is affiliated with the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

– ref. How US presidents shift controversial actions abroad to get around limits at home – https://theconversation.com/how-us-presidents-shift-controversial-actions-abroad-to-get-around-limits-at-home-280769

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Anna Stein, PhD Student, University of Leicester

The word “heritage” generally calls to mind the distant past. Ancient buildings, historic objects or traditions passed down over generations. “Heritage” feels old by definition, but it’s not simply something we inherit. It is something we actively make. What matters is not age but the decision to preserve, display and interpret particular parts of culture as meaningful.

Researchers have long argued that heritage is created through social and political processes rather than discovered fully formed. Professor of heritage and museum studies Laurajane Smith, for example, describes heritage as a cultural process rather than a set of old things.

South Korea offers a clear example of how this shift is playing out today. Forms of popular culture that still feel contemporary – including music, television and fashion – are increasingly entering museums and cultural institutions. Rather than waiting decades to be recognised as historically important, they are being treated as heritage in real time.

This challenges the idea that heritage naturally emerges from the past. Instead, it shows how heritage is shaped by present-day choices.

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This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

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For much of the 20th century, heritage institutions focused on age, tradition and permanence. Museums prioritised monuments, fine art and objects connected to political or national history. Everyday life and popular culture were often seen as too ordinary, too commercial or too temporary to preserve.

This distinction has been questioned by museum and heritage researchers. Studies of museum collecting practices show that heritage is always selective and reflects contemporary values and power structures rather than neutral historical importance. Smith’s concept of “authorised heritage discourse” explains how institutions define what counts as heritage and what does not.

Even so, for many people “heritage” still carries an aura of distance. It is associated with what has survived time, rather than what is happening now.

What has changed is how quickly museums are responding to contemporary culture. Internationally, museums have increasingly collected popular music, film, fashion and everyday objects. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s work on contemporary fashion and popular music collections is one prominent example. In the US, the Smithsonian Institution has similarly expanded its collecting to include popular culture and everyday life.

Korean popular culture in heritage spaces

Korean popular culture makes this shift especially visible. The global success of K-pop, television dramas, film and fashion has drawn attention to contemporary Korean culture both within South Korea and internationally. This global circulation is often described as the “Korean Wave” or Hallyu.

In response, museums and cultural centres have begun collecting and exhibiting these cultural forms alongside more established historical material. K-pop costumes have been displayed in museum exhibitions as material evidence of changing aesthetics, performance labour and global cultural exchange, including at the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History. Television dramas are represented through sets, props and production materials that document how these programmes are made and consumed.

Food culture and domestic interiors are also increasingly framed as heritage. The National Folk Museum of Korea has expanded its exhibitions on modern and contemporary daily life, including housing, food-ways and consumer culture.

What is striking is how recent many of these objects and practices are. They are not relics from a distant past. They are things people still watch, wear, eat and listen to. By bringing them into museums, institutions are effectively declaring their cultural value in the present.

When popular culture enters a heritage space, it changes. Objects are removed from everyday circulation and placed within interpretive frameworks that encourage visitors to see them differently. Exhibition texts, display choices and narratives guide audiences towards particular meanings, such as creativity, national identity or global influence.

Research on museum interpretation shows that these framing decisions are central to how visitors understand cultural value. Korean museums show how quickly this process can happen. Popular culture does not need to age into heritage. It can be made heritage through institutional recognition.

This does not mean everything popular is preserved. Selection remains central. Certain artists, styles and narratives are chosen, while others are excluded. Research on museum collecting has highlighted how gaps and silences are produced alongside preservation.

Who decides what is remembered?

The move towards contemporary heritage raises important questions about authority. Museums, government bodies and cultural organisations all influence what is collected and displayed. In South Korea, heritage decisions are closely tied to cultural policy, tourism and international cultural promotion, as outlined in government cultural policy documents.

Audiences also play a role. Exhibitions focused on popular culture often attract visitors who might not usually engage with museums. Research on visitor engagement shows that popular culture exhibitions are often designed to be immersive and accessible, reshaping expectations of what heritage looks like and who it is for. At the same time, making heritage in the present carries risks. Not all voices are equally represented. Less visible or less marketable forms of culture may be overlooked, even as heritage appears to become more inclusive.

Looking at contemporary Korean culture helps make a broader point. Heritage is no longer confined to the distant past. It is increasingly shaped by the present and reflects what societies value now, not just what they inherit. Recognising this does not diminish the importance of preserving historical sites and objects. Instead, it offers a clearer understanding of heritage as an active process. What we choose to collect, display and remember says as much about today as it does about yesterday.

In a world saturated with popular culture, heritage is no longer something we wait for. It is something we are making all the time.

Anna Stein 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. Heritage is created, not inherited – as Korean pop culture shows – https://theconversation.com/heritage-is-created-not-inherited-as-korean-pop-culture-shows-273613

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sharha, PhD Candidate in Kamasutra Feminism, Cardiff Metropolitan University

We often assume, when it comes to sex, that women’s voices have only been taken seriously in relatively recent history. However, female sexual power and liberation can be found in the Kamasutra, which dates back to the 3rd century.

You can be forgiven for thinking that the Kamasutra isn’t an empowering or forward-thinking text, based on what you likely know and assume about it. But this idea is based on a colonial era misunderstanding that has been carried on and projected through popular culture representations of the “sex guide”. The man responsible for this misunderstanding is Richard Francis Burton who translated the text into English in 1883. This “translation”, however, was not a faithful one but more of an interpretation crafted through a decidedly narrow, male-centred lens.

In my research, however, I have discovered a very different text — one which could be seen even been seen as feminist by modern standards. The original text from the third century attributed to the philosopher Vatsyayana, and more recent translations and interpretations, present women as active, articulate participants in desire.

Far from a simple sex manual, it treats consent as central to sexual freedom, emphasising mutuality, enthusiasm and the right to refuse. Indian scholar Kumkum Roy describes how Vatsyayana believed that desire promotes harmony, supports ethical care and encourages mutual love.

Relationships in Vatsyayana’s text, and its more faithful translations, are presented as negotiated exchanges grounded in desire, communication and emotional attentiveness. Women are not passive. They voice preferences, set boundaries, initiate intimacy and pursue pleasure.

The verses depict a playful, warm exchange among close individuals, sharing comfort through humour, teasing, and using hints rather than direct words, creating an inviting atmosphere that draws them into intimacy and enjoyment. Take this excerpt:

They talk together about things
That they have done together before,
Joking and titillating, touching upon
All sorts of things hidden and obscene.
– Book two, chapter ten

As shown here, consent is conveyed not only through words but through gestures, expressions and responsive signals that require attentiveness rather than assumption. Vatsyayana states that a man should interpret a woman’s gestures and signals of sexual desire to gain her trust before making contact:

When these various erotic moods are evoked
According to the particular nature of the woman
And of her region, they inspire
Women’s affection, passion, and respect.
– Book two, chapter six

Indologist Wendy Doniger argues that the Kamasutra teaches a “sexual language” that extends beyond the bedroom. It is about reading cues, respecting autonomy and recognising desire as something co-created, not imposed, skills that should extend into all social interactions.

According to the verses, showing sensitivity and understanding in romance can really help strengthen a woman’s feelings and respect. Crucially, the text is clear: without a woman’s permission, a man should not touch her.

This stands in stark contrast to many contemporary experiences. Research – including my own, drawing on over 1,000 women’s accounts of coercion – shows how consent is often blurred, unspoken or performed. As the feminist academic and activist, Fiona Vera-Gray has documented, women frequently feel pressure to comply, sometimes faking desire or orgasms to meet expectations.

Revisiting the Kamasutra through a feminist lens reveals something striking: an ancient framework that centres women’s agency, pleasure and choice. It imagines women as confident subjects of desire – capable of saying “yes”, “no” or leaving altogether. In this sense, consent is not merely a legal threshold but a practice shaped by timing, reciprocity and mutual recognition.

What emerges is less a “sex manual” and more a philosophy: one that insists good sex depends on attention, patience and genuine agreement.

Even at the end, love
Enhanced by thoughtful acts
And words and deeds exchanged in confidence
Give rise to the highest ecstasy.
Responding to their feeling about themselves,
Inspiring mutual love.
– Book two, chapter ten

The verses remind us that it’s really the thoughtfulness, trust and emotional honesty that make love truly meaningful and fulfilling. Vatsyayana advises men to listen to women’s voices and become gentle lovers.

The Kamasutra in its true form challenges the idea that women should accommodate male desire, instead positioning their voices as essential to any meaningful encounter. Recovering this perspective matters.

When women are supported to recognise and express their sexual agency, the balance of power shifts. Consent becomes clearer and more mutual, and intimacy, in turn, becomes something that is enjoyed rather than endured.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Sharha 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. Consent is a core principle in the Kamasutra – what we can learn from it today – https://theconversation.com/consent-is-a-core-principle-in-the-kamasutra-what-we-can-learn-from-it-today-280620