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January 30, 2026

How reproductive violence is being used in conflicts to deny people’s future

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Aldo Zammit Borda, Reader, City St George’s, University of London

A recent investigation by the Guardian newspaper and humanitarian NGO Insecurity Insight has exposed how childbirth and reproduction is being weaponised in conflicts worldwide. The evidence is alarming.

In Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict, soldiers reportedly inserted metal objects into women’s wombs. They told victims: “You will never be able to give birth.” In Russian detention facilities, Ukrainian men tell of being subjected to electric shock torture targeting their reproductive organs. Captors declared: “We’re going to sterilise you now.”

During its assault on Gaza, the Israeli military destroyed the territory’s largest fertility clinic in October 2023. The strike eliminated about 4,000 embryos and 1,000 sperm samples. The attack was cited by a UN investigation as a possible example of genocidal intent.

These are examples of reproductive violence. And they are not isolated atrocities. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has defined this as violence that “violates reproductive autonomy and/or it is directed at people on account of their actual or potential reproductive capacity, or perceptions thereof”.

Reproductive violence targets people’s capacity to have children. It is used as a tool of persecution, demographic control and collective punishment.

Serious atrocities such as murder, torture and rape make headlines and should be prosecuted as war crimes, as they often are. But systematic attacks on reproductive capacity remain, as scholars have noted, “in the shadows” of international law.

At the individual level, reproductive violence strikes at something deeply personal: the wish to have children and build a family. When a woman is forcibly sterilised, as has been reported about Uyghur women, the harm goes beyond physical injury. It takes away the possibility of motherhood.

When a man’s reproductive organs are targeted, as has reportedly happened to Ukrainian detainees, it is an assault on identity and future fatherhood. The knowledge that the loss could be permanent compounds the trauma.

At the collective level, reproductive violence enables the slow destruction of a group’s future. Mass killing provokes immediate international outrage. But destroying a fertility clinic or sterilising a population achieves the same outcome over time, with less visible evidence.

As one Uyghur survivor of China’s re-education camps put it: the strategy is “not to kill us in cold blood, but to make us slowly disappear. So slowly that no one would notice”.

Reproductive violence also offers perpetrators plausible deniability. Forced sterilisation can be framed as family planning as China insisted in the case of Uyghur women. Destroyed maternity wards may be explained as collateral damage, as the Israeli government has in the cases of hospitals destroyed in Gaza.

But deniability is not the only reason it is used. Reproductive violence is also devastatingly efficient. When Israeli forces destroyed Gaza’s largest fertility clinic, the United Nations commission of inquiry concluded that “the Israeli security forces knew of the function of the clinic and intended to target it”. One attack, thousands of potential children lost.

A hidden category of harm

While recognition of reproductive violence is growing, it remains poorly understood and rarely prosecuted. Several factors explain this gap.

First, reproduction has historically been classified as belonging to the “private sphere,” outside the proper concern of international law. Forced pregnancies, forced contraception and miscarriages are considered too intimate for public discourse. This creates what international legal scholar Fionnuala Ní Aoláin has called a “zone of silence”.

Second, reproductive violence has traditionally been absorbed into sexual violence. This approach has overshadowed reproductive violence as a distinct category. Rape and other sexual crimes have rightly gained attention. But it has also rendered reproductive violence invisible as a distinct category, with its own victims and its own harms.

As Ní Aoláin observed: “While rape in armed conflict makes headlines, obstetric violence against women and girls generally does not.”

Third, much reproductive violence operates indirectly and may appear almost routine. A woman who miscarries because a maternity ward was bombed has suffered reproductive violence. But there is no direct perpetrator with blood on their hands. The deaths are statistical, diffuse, and emerge over time.

Making the invisible visible

Addressing reproductive violence requires first understanding it. A key obstacle has been conceptual: existing definitions fail to unpack its different harms. While forced pregnancy, castration and forced abortion are all reproductive violence, they affect victims in very different ways.

Research I have published in the International Journal of Transitional Justice develops a new typology. It categorises reproductive violence by its consequences for victims.

Birth-compelling harms force unwanted pregnancies. Birth-preventing harms deprive victims of reproductive capacity. Birth-endangering or terminating harms endanger wanted pregnancies or destroy health infrastructure.

This typology matters for three reasons. It makes visible the distinct harms each category inflicts. It helps investigators spot seemingly isolated acts as part of a concerted plan. And it strengthens the case for accountability under international law.

Recognition is slowly emerging. Today, more organisations treat reproductive violence as a distinct form of gender-based violence. But recognition requires deeper understanding of why reproductive violence occurs and its effects on victims. For too long, the law has treated this violence as incidental to mass atrocities rather than central to their execution.

Perpetrators have always known otherwise: control over whether a people can have children is control over whether that people will exist at all.

Aldo Zammit Borda receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council. He served as Head of Research and Investigation for the informal Uyghur Tribunal (https://uyghurtribunal.com/), and Head of Research for the Yazidi Justice Committee (https://www.yazidijustice.com/). The views herein are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of any other person or organization.

– ref. How reproductive violence is being used in conflicts to deny people’s future – https://theconversation.com/how-reproductive-violence-is-being-used-in-conflicts-to-deny-peoples-future-273910

January 30, 2026

Gorton and Denton byelection: Labour won comfortably in 2024 but Reform could benefit from a split vote on the left

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Louise Thompson, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Manchester

A byelection has been set for February 26 in the Manchester constituency of Gorton and Denton. This will be a big test for Keir Starmer’s Labour party and a temperature check on the state of multi-party politics in the North. Although Labour won the seat comfortably in 2024, some early polls are already suggesting Reform could win.

Byelections are awkward beasts and don’t necessarily follow the usual rules. What makes things harder in this case is that Gorton and Denton is a new constituency. It was formed by boundary changes in 2024 from parts of three different Manchester constituencies (Gorton, Denton & Reddish and Manchester Withington).

When we try to understand what might happen in a byelection, we rely on the constituency’s past election results as a marker, which is obviously limited to just one election in this case. Gorton and Denton is also “a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster”, as my colleague Rob Ford has written.

It has an elongated shape and combines areas with huge socio-demographic differences. Its Tameside wards are predominantly white, with a sizeable working class while its Manchester wards have a much higher student and Muslim population.

Labour has everything to lose

Ordinarily, this would be a constituency which Labour should easily win. Manchester is a Labour heartland through and through. Its other five constituencies are all held by Labour MPs, it boasts all but a handful of seats on the City Council and Andy Burnham trounced his opponents in the city’s last mayoral elections with a 68,000 majority.

But byelections are difficult for governments and Keir Starmer’s track record so far is not good. Labour lost a byelection in the Cheshire constituency of Runcorn and Helsby in May 2025 to Reform’s Sarah Pochin. Pochin won on a narrow margin of just six votes but had managed to overturn a majority of over 14,000. That makes Labour’s majority of 13,000 in Gorton and Denton look less than secure.

The real danger here is that Labour finds itself in the squeezed middle. It risks losing voters to Reform on the right and the Greens on the left. This is what happened in the Caerphilly Senedd byelection in November, which saw Labour pushed back into third place behind Reform and winners Plaid Cymru.

Reform has everything to prove

Nigel Farage’s party has the momentum at the moment. Polls suggest they are outperforming Labour nationally right now and the recent high-profile defections of Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman have increased the size of their parliamentary group to 8 MPs.

The Reform candidate in Gorton and Denton, former university academic and GB News presenter Matthew Goodwin, may be the most recognisable candidate to voters, but his political views may not go down well throughout the constituency.

His views on the white working class being left behind may resonate in some of Manchester’s Tameside wards, but his extreme views on immigration and what it means to be British will not play well in others, something the Greens in particular are trying to capitalise on.

Pitching the byelection as a “referendum” on Starmer’s leadership is a sensible strategy by Goodwin, especially as a recent YouGov poll showed that 76% of voters in the North think the prime minister is doing a bad job. Reform may struggle to bring together enough voters ready to sign up to all the party stands for, but may be able to borrow the votes from those who nevertheless want Labour out and would benefit from a split on the left.

Victory in Gorton and Denton would not only mean that Reform will equal the SNP in party group size in the Commons, it will be a further pull for disgruntled or panicking Conservative (or Labour) MPs, ahead of the May 7 deadline Farage has imposed on MPs thinking about defecting to his party. But there is a sizeable chunk of voters across the UK who say they would never vote for Reform, and who could vote tactically for Labour just to keep Reform out.

Green performance could be key

The Greens did not perform brilliantly in Gorton and Denton at the 2024 elections, but nationally the party received 7% of the vote and they hold over 800 seats on local councils. Since the election, they have elected a new leader, Zack Polanski, who has been instrumental in raising the Green voice in the media.

Their candidate is Hannah Spencer, a councillor in the region who stood for mayor in 2024 and finished in fifth place, behind Reform.

Polanski is confident that only the Greens can beat Reform in Gorton and Denton. And while that’s a bold claim, his supporters will be buoyed by the seat they took from Reform in a Derbyshire local byelection last year.

And even if they don’t win, a solid Green performance could be very bad news for Starmer.

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Louise Thompson 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. Gorton and Denton byelection: Labour won comfortably in 2024 but Reform could benefit from a split vote on the left – https://theconversation.com/gorton-and-denton-byelection-labour-won-comfortably-in-2024-but-reform-could-benefit-from-a-split-vote-on-the-left-274672

January 30, 2026

PIB du Sénégal : comment le nouveau calcul redessine les marges de manœuvre de l’État

Source: The Conversation – in French – By Souleymane Gueye, Professor of Economics and Statistics, City College of San Francisco

Aucune économie ne peut être correctement gérée sans données économiques fiables. Cette idée, qui traverse toute l’histoire de la pensée économique – d’Adam Smith à Simon Kuznets, le père de la comptabilité nationale moderne – est au cœur du débat sur sur le “rebasing” du Produit intérieur brut (PIB) sénégalais.

Le Sénégal, comme beaucoup d’économies africaines, a décidé en 2023 de réviser la base de calcul de son PIB. Derrière cet exercice technique se joue un enjeu central : disposer d’indicateurs crédibles pour évaluer les politiques publiques et la performance économique du pays, de même que la soutenabilité de la dette. Les comptes nationaux du Sénégal ont ainsi changé d’année de base au mois de novembre 2025.

La révision de la base du PIB — ou rebasing — est un outil stratégique pour corriger les distorsions dans la mesure de l’activité économique. Au Sénégal, cette opération intervient dans un contexte de tensions macroéconomiques, de découverte de passifs cachés et de négociations difficiles avec le Fonds monétaire international (FMI).

Ce rebasing intervient dans un contexte de marges de manœuvre budgétaires limitées et où le FMI maintient une posture prudente, voire dilatoire, face aux demandes d’ajustement alignées sur l’agenda national de transformation économique, appelé “Sénégal 2050”. Cette situation révèle un dilemme structurel : concilier discipline macroéconomique, souveraineté dans le choix des politiques économiques et impératif de croissance économique durable et inclusive.

En tant qu’économiste spécialisé dans les statistiques et politiques macroéconomiques, je propose ici une analyse des enjeux macroéconomiques et financiers liés au rebasing au Sénégal. J’examine également la manière dont cette opération statistique pourrait contribuer à renforcer la crédibilité des réformes et éclairer les arbitrages stratégiques nécessaires pour une transformation durable de l’économie sénégalaise.

Qu’est-ce que le rebasing ?

Le rebasing consiste à actualiser l’année de référence utilisée pour calculer le PIB et donner aux utilisateurs des données économiques fiables, c’est-à-dire :

• Actualiser les prix relatifs;

• Réviser les pondérations sectorielles;

• Intégrer de nouvelles sources de données;

• Ajuster les méthodes statistiques;

• Identifier et mesurer les nouveaux secteurs d’activité.

Pour la nouvelle base de 2021, l’Agence nationale de la statistique et de la démographie (ANSD) a mobilisé des enquêtes essentielles : secteur informel, orpaillage, extraction de sable et de sel, transport, marges commerciales, flux transfrontaliers non enregistrés, institutions sans but lucratif, recensement de l’élevage, etc.

Pourquoi le rebasing était nécessaire pour le Sénégal

Dans un pays comme le Sénégal, cette mise à jour régulière du PIB est indispensable pour plusieurs raisons structurelles :

1. Une économie en mutation rapide

En effet, l’économie sénégalaise ne ressemble plus à celle d’il y a dix ou quinze ans. Le poids des télécoms, du numérique, des services financiers dématérialisés (paiements mobiles, fintechs), du commerce tertiarisé (processus de fournir des services à la population dominée par le petit commerce au détail), du développement pharmaceutique, des chaînes de distribution et des industries culturelles est devenu considérable.

Or, tant que l’année de base reste ancienne, ces secteurs sont sous-estimés ou ignorés.

2. Une meilleure prise en compte du secteur informel

Le Sénégal, comme la plupart des économies africaines, possède un secteur informel large et diversifié. Les techniques statistiques modernes permettent une meilleure prise en compte de cette partie de l’activité économique longtemps mal mesurée.

3. Une meilleure prise en compte des investissements

Les changements dans l’investissement public (infrastructures, énergie, transport), l’investissement privé dans les activités pétrolières et gazières, dans les chaînes de valeur privée n’étaient pas correctement reflétés par l’ancienne base (2014)

4. Une démographie jeune et dynamique

Le récent recensement de la population (2023) révèle une croissance démographique très dynamique caractérisée par une population jeune – âge médian moins de 19 ans – et urbaine. Comptant parmi les pays les plus jeunes au monde avec près de 75 % de la population âgée de moins de 35 ans, le Sénégal peut exploiter judicieusement ce dividende démographique. En effet, les jeunes de 15 a 34 ans représentent 59 % de la population en âge de travailler mais la majorité d’entre eux (63 %) sont sans emploi.

5. Des enjeux de crédibilité internationale

Une économie sous-évaluée statistiquement peut sous-évaluer sa richesse réelle et surestimer artificiellement ses ratios d’endettement, entraînant une mauvaise perception des investisseurs étrangers sur sa trajectoire économique.

Un rebasing plus précoce aurait permis d’intégrer ces changements dès leur apparition sur la scène économique. De plus, il aurait favorisé un renforcement de la planification économique en permettant une meilleure identification des moteurs de la croissance de l’économie sénégalaise et un alignement plus rigoureux entre politiques économiques et structures productives.

Ce retard de presque dix ans a eu des conséquences importantes sur les ratios macro-économiques du pays qui ont affecté la cohérence des politiques publiques, des prévisions macro-économiques et de la communication avec les partenaires financiers.

Ce qui change après le rebasing

Le rebasing a plusieurs effets mécaniques et importants sur les indicateurs macro-économiques et les critères de convergence de l’Union économique et monétaire ouest africaine (Uemoa).

1. Un PIB plus élevé

Pour le Sénégal, la nouvelle base intègre mieux les services modernes, l’économie numérique et l’informel. Elle actualise les méthodes de collecte de données, et corrige les prix relatifs et les structures de production pour obtenir un PIB plus fiable.

Avec le rebasing, le PIB passe de 15,261 milliards de FCFA à 17,316 milliards de FCFA (27,5 millions à 31,2 millions de dollars US), soit une hausse de 14 %. Cette revalorisation s’explique par une meilleure couverture statistique et l’intégration de nouvelles enquêtes. Le rebasing a aussi eu des implications majeures sur la soutenabilité de la dette publique sénégalaise. .

Dans un contexte marqué par la découverte d’une dette cachée et par l’accroissement des besoins de financement, la soutenabilité de la dette constitue un enjeu central. Ainsi un rebasing du PIB entraîne généralement une baisse mécanique du ratio dette/PIB, une amélioration des indicateurs de convergence et une atténuation des pressions pour une consolidation budgétaire immédiate du fait de l’élargissement des marges de manœuvre fiscales. Pour le Sénégal, le solde budgétaire global rapporté au PIB est passé de -13,3 % à -11,8 % en 2021.

• Le taux de pression fiscale s’établit en 2021 à 15,9 % contre 18,0 % dans l’ancienne base (2014).

• Le taux d’endettement public est ressorti en 2021 à 80,0 % contre 90,8 % du PIB avec l’ancienne base.

• Le solde extérieur courant rapporté au PIB s’est situé en 2021 à -10,7 % contre -12,1 % avec l’ancienne base.

Toutefois, cette amélioration ne modifie pas les flux réels de dette qui demeurent inchangés malgré l’ajustement des indicateurs. Ces indicateurs peuvent contribuer à la restauration de la crédibilité macro-économique, à l’amélioration des conditions de financement sur les marchés, et enfin au renforcement de la position du Sénégal dans les discussions bilatérales et multilatérales.

2. Une reclassification sectorielle plus fidèle

Le poids du secteur tertiaire en 2021 a ainsi enregistré une augmentation, passant de 50,5 % à 53,4 %.

Le poids des activités du primaire a été relativement stable (15,6 % avec l’ancienne base à 15,4 % avec la nouvelle base). En revanche, celui du secteur secondaire s’est replié, passant de 23,9 % à 22,6 %.

La part des dépenses de consommation finale dans le PIB est passée de 81,7 % à 84,7 % alors que celle de l’investissement est passée de 38,4 % à 32,8 % à la suite du rebasing. En revanche, le poids des exportations nettes de biens et services s’établit à -17,5 % dans la nouvelle base contre -20,1 % dans l’ancienne.

Ainsi les services modernes deviennent plus importants, le secteur primaire, notamment l’agriculture, diminue en proportion et le secteur industriel régresse. Cette nouvelle structure sectorielle permet des politiques publiques plus ciblées, une meilleure compréhension de la productivité et des chaînes de valeur et aussi une réactualisation ou une amélioration du Plan de redressement économique et social (PRES), voire une meilleure planification de l’Agenda national de développement économique, de la Vision 2050 et des stratégies sectorielles.

Ce qui ne change pas

En revanche, le rebasing ne crée pas de richesse mais permet de mieux la mesurer dès l’instant où la capacité productive réelle du pays ne change pas avec cette opération. Il ne réduit pas non plus la dette publique réelle car seul le dénominateur du ratio dette publique augmente. Par contre, il peut refléter une bonne soutenabilité de la dette, même si les échéances restent inchangées. Il peut aussi alléger la pression sur la trésorerie de l’État.

Les problèmes budgétaires tels que la rigidité des dépenses publiques, les tensions sur la masse salariale, les subventions à l’énergie, la faible pression fiscale, les retards de paiement ou les arriérés ne disparaissent pas ni ne sont résolus. De même les défis structurels de l’économie sénégalaise – une productivité très faible, une dépendance alimentaire, une vulnérabilité aux chocs externes, une dualité entre secteur moderne et secteur informel et une faible industrialisation – demeurent sans solution. Bien que le rebasing améliore la perception extérieure, il ne garantit ni croissance future ni investissements nouveaux.

Dès lors, des réformes structurelles, la création d’un meilleur climat des affaires, un État stratège plus efficace, et une mobilisation fiscale renforcée doivent être mises en place pour l’achèvement des objectifs économiques du pays.

Ce qu’il faut retenir

Le rebasing n’est pas une simple opération statistique : dans le contexte actuel du Sénégal, il s’agit d’un levier stratégique pour restaurer la crédibilité macroéconomique, clarifier l’état réel des finances publiques et rééquilibrer les relations avec les partenaires internationaux.

Il offre au gouvernement une opportunité de consolider son agenda de transformation structurelle de l’économie, à condition de l’accompagner d’une gouvernance renforcée, d’une transparence accrue et d’un cadre de réformes cohérent.

Dans un environnement mondial incertain et face à des attentes sociales grandissantes, la capacité du Sénégal à articuler discipline macroéconomique, innovation institutionnelle et ambition de développement sera déterminante. Le rebasing constitue une étape majeure vers cette recomposition nécessaire.

Souleymane Gueye receives funding from the Fulbright Foundation. He has been affiliated with the American Economic Association since 2010

– ref. PIB du Sénégal : comment le nouveau calcul redessine les marges de manœuvre de l’État – https://theconversation.com/pib-du-senegal-comment-le-nouveau-calcul-redessine-les-marges-de-manoeuvre-de-letat-272828

January 30, 2026

« Ce que tu veux, c’est ce que tu es » : « Gourou » ou la violence invisible de la positivité toxique

Source: The Conversation – France (in French) – By Isabelle Barth, Secrétaire général, The Conversation France, Université de Strasbourg

Le comportement du personnage interprété par Pierre Niney dans _Gourou_ reflète-t-il avec exactitude la réalité du coaching ? Ou est-il caricatural ? WY Productions/Ninety Films/Studiocanal/M6 Films/Photographe Jérôme Prébois

Dans Gourou, le nouveau film de Yann Gozlan, Pierre Niney interprète un coach en développement personnel qui pousse les limites trop loin. Si les excès du bien-être méritent d’être critiqués, le coaching, sous certaines conditions, reste un outil qui peut être utile… à condition de ne pas lui demander ce qu’il ne peut pas faire. La croyance en une toute-puissance (de soi, du coach ou du coaching), voilà le danger !

« Ce que tu veux, c’est ce que tu es ! » Dans le film Gourou, ce mantra répété jusqu’à l’épuisement par le public à l’initiative du « gourou » (incarné par Pierre Niney) n’est pas un simple slogan de motivation, c’est le symptôme d’une idéologie dans laquelle nous baignons dans nos sociétés occidentales (c’est un prérequis indispensable de se situer dans ce cadre culturel) : celle qui prétend que la volonté suffit à tout, que le bonheur est un choix individuel, que la souffrance relève d’un défaut personnel.

Le film en fait une ritournelle hypnotique, révélant la face sombre de cette croyance devenue hégémonique : car la réalité est qu’elle culpabilise, elle isole, elle invalide.

Le gourou : une figure moderne de l’emprise

Traditionnellement, le terme « gourou » désigne un maître spirituel (à l’origine dans la religion brahmanique). Mais les sciences sociales ont montré son évolution vers une figure plus ambiguë : celle d’un individu charismatique qui exerce une influence disproportionnée sur un groupe en promettant transformation, sens et salut personnel. Les travaux de Janet Jacobs et de Benjamin Zablocki sur les dynamiques sectaires montrent que le gourou moderne n’a plus besoin de religion : il lui suffit d’un récit séduisant et performatif pour réunir autour de lui une communauté soudée qui croit en sa promesse de réussite totale.

Dans le film Gourou, cette figure est incarnée par un maître du développement personnel qui exige une adhésion sans faille à son credo. Il ne guide pas : il prescrit. Il ne propose pas : il impose. Et surtout, il réduit toute souffrance à un manque de volonté. C’est là que le film touche juste : il montre comment l’emprise peut se construire non par la contrainte, mais par la promesse de bonheur.

Les exemples contemporains abondent. Dans les entreprises, on peut trouver des ateliers de « gestion émotionnelle » proposés à des salariés soumis à des cadences intenables. Sur LinkedIn, des cadres racontent leur burn out comme une « aventure inspirante ». Sur Instagram, des influenceurs affirment que « la maladie est un message de l’Univers ». Dans tous ces cas, la souffrance est requalifiée en défaut de mindset, et la porte de sortie est de rebondir, mais nous ne sommes pas des balles en caoutchouc !

C’est cette dénonciation de la « positivité toxique » qui est, à mon sens, l’angle le plus intéressant et interpellateur du film.

La positivité toxique : une norme sociale qui invalide

La positivité toxique n’est pas une invention de scénariste. La psychologue Barbara Held parle dès 2002 de « tyranny of the positive attitude », une tyrannie douce qui exige d’afficher un optimisme constant. Dès 2002, Whitney Goodman a popularisé le terme toxic positivity pour désigner cette injonction à nier les émotions négatives. Quant à Sara Ahmed, elle montre dans The Promise of Happiness (2010) que le bonheur est devenu une norme morale : ceux qui ne s’y conforment pas sont perçus comme des perturbateurs.

Cette idéologie produit un mécanisme central : l’invalidation émotionnelle. Les psychologues parlent d’emotional invalidation pour désigner cette dynamique où l’on explique à quelqu’un que ce qu’il ressent n’est « pas utile », « pas constructif », ou « pas la bonne manière de voir les choses ». Dans Gourou, cette invalidation est systémique : toute émotion « basse » est immédiatement interprétée comme un manque de volonté ou un défaut de caractère. La tristesse devient une erreur, la colère une faute morale, la fatigue un manque d’ambition.

Cette invalidation fragilise les individus, les coupe de leur propre expérience, et les rend dépendants d’un discours qui prétend les sauver tout en les dépossédant de leur réalité. Le film illustre bien une dérive, mais s’adosse aux polémiques autour du coaching qui font les choux gras des médias.

Ne pas jeter le coaching… avec l’eau du bain !

Le coaching occupe aujourd’hui une place ambivalente. Le lien entre positivité toxique et coaching est souvent fait. Pour certains chercheurs (on peut citer les travaux de Roland Gori ou ceux d’Eva Illouz et Edgar Cabanas dans leur livre Happycratie, 2018) le coaching contemporain, loin de se limiter à un accompagnement professionnel, s’est transformé en industrie du développement personnel. Pour ces critiques, le coaching promeut une vision individualiste du bonheur : chacun serait responsable de son état émotionnel, indépendamment des conditions sociales, économiques ou politiques.

Le coaching reposerait alors sur une logique d’auto-optimisation permanente : devenir la meilleure version de soi-même, corriger ses « blocages », éliminer ses « pensées limitantes ». Cette rhétorique, en apparence émancipatrice, produit un effet pervers : elle transforme les difficultés structurelles en problèmes psychologiques individuels.

L’individu responsable de tous les maux ? Vraiment ?

Dans Gourou, le maître-coach incarne cette dérive. Il ne questionne jamais les causes des souffrances ; il accuse les individus de ne pas « vouloir assez ». Il ne libère pas ; il enferme dans une spirale où chaque faille devient une preuve d’insuffisance personnelle.

Mais réduire toute la profession à ces dérives serait injuste. Le coaching, lorsqu’il est exercé avec éthique, offre un espace d’écoute, de clarification et de progression réelle. De nombreux travaux, notamment en psychologie du travail, montrent qu’un accompagnement bien mené peut renforcer l’autonomie, soutenir la prise de décision et aider à traverser des transitions complexes. Le problème n’est donc pas le coaching en soi, mais son instrumentalisation par une idéologie du « tout dépend de toi ». Gourou pointe ces excès, et enfonce la porte déjà bien entrouverte de la valeur d’un métier qui, pratiqué avec rigueur, peut réellement aider.

Ce que « Gourou » dit de notre société

Le film révèle une violence invisible, enveloppée de bienveillance, mais profondément normative. Une violence qui dit : « Tu n’as pas le droit d’être triste. » Une violence qui exige que chacun soit son propre coach, son propre thérapeute, mais aussi son propre bourreau en s’imposant des défis sans avoir forcément les ressources pour les relever. Une violence qui simplifie le monde pour éviter de regarder en face ce qui ne va pas.

Il est temps de rappeler une évidence : la tristesse n’est pas un échec, la colère n’est pas un défaut, le doute n’est pas une faiblesse. Ce sont des émotions humaines, légitimes, nécessaires. Gourou invite à refuser la dictature du sourire et à retrouver le droit fondamental d’être humain, donc… imparfait.

Isabelle Barth 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 tu veux, c’est ce que tu es » : « Gourou » ou la violence invisible de la positivité toxique – https://theconversation.com/ce-que-tu-veux-cest-ce-que-tu-es-gourou-ou-la-violence-invisible-de-la-positivite-toxique-274660

January 30, 2026

French (Dry) January : les consommateurs de vins sans alcool consomment de l’alcool

Source: The Conversation – France (in French) – By Rossella Sorio, Professeure Associée, Département Marketing ICN BS, ICN Business School

Le French January invite à reconnaître la pluralité des pratiques entre boire avec modération, boire autrement ou ne pas boire. BearFotos/Shutterstock

Après le Dry January, place au French January : boire avec modération, boire autrement ou ne pas boire. Une étude sur les vins sans alcool ou à faible teneur en alcool (vins « nolo », pour no-low) analyse cette nouvelle tendance française invitant à dépasser un choix binaire entre consommation et abstinence. Explication avec le témoignage de consommateurs.

Notre analyse de près de 150 entretiens montre que les consommateurs de vins « nolo », ou no-low, en France ne sont ni majoritairement des abstinents stricts ni des individus contraints par des impératifs médicaux ou physiologiques. Le plus souvent, ces consommateurs réguliers d’alcool sont attachés au vin comme pratique sociale et culturelle, mais restent désireux de mieux maîtriser leur consommation et d’en moduler l’intensité et les occasions.

Nos résultats suggèrent que la sobriété s’inscrit moins dans une logique d’abstinence normative que dans des formes de régulation des pratiques et de gouvernement de soi. C’est dans cette tension, entre contrôle de soi et refus de l’abstinence normative, que s’inscrit aujourd’hui le débat entre Dry January et French January.

Cette régulation prend très concrètement la forme d’une alternance des produits selon les contextes. Un consommateur français dans notre étude de 2019 disait « Ce n’est pas pour arrêter de boire du vin, c’est pour mieux gérer selon les moments ». Un autre consommateur français dans notre étude de 2024 soulignait le caractère situationnel de ce choix : « Je bois du vin classique quand le moment s’y prête, et du sans alcool quand je dois conduire ou rester concentré ». Une autre personne interviewée ajoute « continuer à boire pour le plaisir, sans se sentir limité, et sans renoncer complètement au vin ».

Décryptage de ce paradoxe French (Dry) January.

Juste milieu entre le trop et le zéro

Le Dry January, lancé au Royaume-Uni en 2013, repose sur une logique claire : une abstinence totale pendant un mois, afin de favoriser une prise de conscience individuelle et de générer des bénéfices mesurables pour la santé. En France, cette initiative, portée depuis 2020 principalement par des associations de prévention, s’inscrit dans un contexte particulier, celui d’un pays où l’alcool, et en particulier le vin, occupe une place centrale dans les pratiques sociales et culturelles.

Face à cette logique de rupture temporaire, le French January s’est imposé comme une contre-proposition culturelle, défendue par la filière vitivinicole et largement relayé dans la presse. Cette orientation est explicitement formulée dans le manifeste du French January qui invite à « savourer plutôt que s’interdire », à reconnaître la pluralité des pratiques – boire avec modération, boire autrement ou ne pas boire – et à rechercher « un juste milieu entre le trop et le zéro ».

Le French January reformule les enjeux de santé publique dans un cadre narratif différent, en revendiquant une sobriété choisie et non imposée, appelée à s’inscrire dans la durée plutôt que dans la seule parenthèse du mois de janvier.

Limites du « tout ou rien »

Cette coexistence de deux initiatives révèle une polarisation très française du débat. D’un côté, une sobriété conçut comme abstinence temporaire, de l’autre, une sobriété pensée comme régulation des pratiques. Cette polarisation est souvent caricaturée en opposition entre « hygiénistes » et « épicuriens », alors même que les données scientifiques rappellent une réalité incontestable : toute consommation d’alcool comporte un risque.

Selon l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS), l’alcool est responsable de millions de décès chaque année, et il n’existe pas de seuil de consommation totalement sans risque. Mickaël Naassila, chercheur et président de la Société française d’alcoologie, insiste sur une bascule culturelle réelle : recul des croyances dans un alcool « protecteur », acceptation croissante de la non-consommation, notamment chez les jeunes, et meilleure connaissance des risques.

Cette bascule reste incomplète et entravée par des blocages politiques et institutionnels. Contrairement au tabac, il n’existe pas en France de véritable « plan alcool ». Les campagnes de prévention sont souvent limitées à la lutte contre les excès ou les dépendances, au détriment de la prévention primaire. Dans ce contexte, le Dry January joue un rôle important : il rend visible la non-consommation, légitime le refus de boire et permet à certains individus de développer des compétences psychosociales pour réguler leurs pratiques.

Les limites du « tout ou rien » sont également documentées. Des travaux récents suggèrent que l’abstinence temporaire peut produire des effets de compensation après janvier, et qu’elle touche principalement des consommateurs occasionnels, sans nécessairement atteindre les publics les plus vulnérables.

Ces constats ne disqualifient pas le Dry January ils rappellent simplement qu’un changement durable des comportements ne peut reposer sur un seul dispositif normatif.

Vins « nolo », l’angle mort du débat

C’est précisément ici que les recherches en marketing, en comportement du consommateur et en sociologie des marchés peuvent enrichir le débat. La transition vers une consommation d’alcool plus responsable ne dépend pas uniquement des messages de santé publique, mais aussi de la manière dont les produits et les pratiques sont catégorisés, légitimés et émotionnellement valorisés.

Les vins sans alcool ou à faible teneur en alcool (vins « nolo ») constituent un révélateur particulièrement intéressant. Souvent présentés comme des alternatives responsables, ils se situent pourtant dans une zone de tension. D’un côté, ils répondent à une demande croissante de réduction de la consommation ; de l’autre, ils souffrent d’un déficit de légitimité, notamment lorsqu’ils sont associés à une logique de privation ou de contrainte temporaire.

Cette alternance est d’autant plus importante que, pour une majorité de consommateurs interrogés, les vins « nolo » ne sont pas conçus comme des substituts du vin, mais comme des options complémentaires. Nos enquêtes de 2019 et 2024 insistent sur le fait qu’ils continuent à consommer du vin avec alcool pour certaines occasions, tout en recourant au vin sans alcool pour rester pleinement dans le moment social, sans se sentir mis à l’écart. Cette alternance est d’abord liée aux occasions de sociabilité :

« Boire du vin, c’est surtout un moment pour être ensemble, pour partager un repas », explique un consommateur français.

Dans ce contexte, le vin sans alcool est mobilisé non pas comme un substitut, mais comme un ajustement, comme exprimé par un autre consommateur français :

« Ce n’est pas un vin de repas pour moi, plutôt quelque chose pour l’apéritif ou quand on veut rester sobre », souligne une personne interviewée.

Cette distinction entre usages est également très présente dans les discours des consommateurs. Pour les consommateurs français, le vin sans alcool « n’est pas fait pour remplacer le vin », mais pour répondre à des situations spécifiques : « un déjeuner d’affaires », « un événement en journée » ou « un moment où l’on veut rester lucide ».

Produits « free-from » alcool

Nos travaux sur les produits « free-from » montrent que, dans les catégories hédoniques comme le vin, la suppression d’un attribut central – ici l’alcool – peut altérer la valeur perçue, l’authenticité et le plaisir anticipé. Le risque est alors double : soit le vin « nolo » est perçu comme un simple substitut fonctionnel, dépourvu de valeur émotionnelle ; soit il est rejeté comme un « faux vin », ni pleinement vin, ni véritable alternative.

Nos entretiens mettent en évidence une tension entre attentes hédoniques et logiques de régulation. Pour certains consommateurs, l’alcool demeure indissociable du plaisir associé au vin, au point que le vin sans alcool est perçu comme ne permettant ni de « se détendre » ni d’« oublier ses émotions négatives ».

Dans ce contexte, le French January peut offrir un cadre discursif différent. En valorisant la pluralité des choix – boire moins, boire autrement, ou ne pas boire –, il permet de repositionner les vins « nolo » non comme une solution miracle, ni comme un gadget marketing, mais comme une option parmi d’autres dans un répertoire de pratiques responsables. Cette recatégorisation est essentielle : elle conditionne l’acceptabilité sociale de ces produits et leur capacité à s’inscrire durablement dans les usages.

Consommation d’alcool plus responsable

Cette opportunité est ambivalente. Si la modération est invoquée sans rappel explicite des risques liés à l’alcool, elle peut contribuer à brouiller les messages de santé publique. À l’inverse, si les vins « nolo » sont présentés comme une réponse suffisante aux enjeux sanitaires, ils risquent de créer une illusion de solution, détournant l’attention des changements plus profonds nécessaires dans les pratiques.

Ce débat ne devrait pas être lu comme un affrontement entre deux camps irréconciliables, mais comme le symptôme d’une transition normative inachevée. Là où la santé publique explique pourquoi il faut réduire la consommation d’alcool, les sciences sociales et du management permettent de comprendre pourquoi certaines manières de formuler, de vendre et de catégoriser la sobriété fonctionnent… ou échouent.

Une consommation d’alcool plus responsable ne se construira ni par la seule abstinence ponctuelle ni par une modération vague et dépolitisée. Elle suppose des messages clairs sur les risques, des cadres normatifs cohérents, et une réflexion approfondie sur la place des marchés et des émotions dans nos choix. À ce prix seulement, le débat pourra gagner en maturité, et en efficacité.

Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.

– ref. French (Dry) January : les consommateurs de vins sans alcool consomment de l’alcool – https://theconversation.com/french-dry-january-les-consommateurs-de-vins-sans-alcool-consomment-de-lalcool-274132

January 30, 2026

Rafiki unbanned on appeal: why it’s an important moment for African film

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Gibson Ncube, Senior Lecturer, Stellenbosch University

The film Rafiki is a charming love story that plays out in urban Kenya. It follows two teenage girls whose close friendship slowly turns into first love. Directed by rising filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu, it was celebrated as groundbreaking by critics and at festivals when it was released in 2018. But back home in Kenya, where homosexuality is criminal, the film was banned.

On 23 January 2026, after a lengthy legal campaign by the filmmaker, the Kenyan Court of Appeals unbanned Rafiki for public screening in that country.

In 2018, the state-funded Kenya Film Classification Board had justified the ban because the film’s happy ending was perceived to be “promoting homosexuality”. The ban quickly became a symbol of the problems filmmakers face whenever they challenge traditional views on sex, gender and morality.

The unbanning marks more than the rehabilitation of a single film. It signals a subtle but significant shift in how African film might negotiate censorship in the years to come.

A young African woman with dreadlocks smiles at the camera, wearing a flowing green dress with a white pattern on it. — Wanuri Kahiu in 2025.
Bryan Berlin/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-SA

My research as a scholar of African queer cinemas has focused on how such moments reveal the fragile yet transformative possibilities through which African film cultures negotiate visibility and legitimacy. And the right to imagine queer futures and freedom of speech on their own terms.

At first glance, the unbanning might appear modest. Kenya has not decriminalised same-sex relations, and legal restrictions on LGBTIQ+ lives remain firmly in place. Even so, Rafiki’s return is very important.

It marks the first time a Kenyan film previously prohibited for queer content has been permitted full public circulation. Other recently banned queer-themed films like I am Samuel remain banned.

Although largely symbolic, the gesture disrupts long-standing assumptions about what African films can show, who they can centre, and which lives can be made visible.

Censorship and representation

African film industries have historically operated under difficult systems of moral, religious, and political regulation. From colonial censorship boards to postcolonial classification authorities, film has been treated as requiring constant surveillance.

Sexuality, especially queer sexuality, has been one of the most heavily policed domains. Films tackling same-sex desire have often been banned, restricted to festival circuits, or forced into underground circulation. In South Africa, the film Inxeba/The Wound was effectively banned from mainstream cinemas. In Nigeria, the first independent queer film Ìfé was prohibited from cinemas.

Rafiki’s initial banning followed this pattern. Despite being selected for screening at the important Cannes Film Festival, it was deemed unsuitable for Kenyan audiences. An internationally celebrated Kenyan film could be screened overseas but not in Nairobi.

So the unbanning disrupts this asymmetry. It shows that national cinemas cannot indefinitely insulate themselves from transnational circuits. Overseas, African queer films increasingly gain visibility, prestige and market value.

Kenyan law appears, in this sense, to be more flexible and changing in response to international attention, cultural pressure and public image.

African audiences

One of the most significant implications of the unbanning concerns the question of audiences. Bans don’t just suppress content; they also actively shape who is imagined as the viewers. For decades, queer African films have been implicitly addressed to foreign audiences, festivals and academic readers, rather than to local publics.

Allowing Rafiki to screen at home challenges this idea. It opens a space, even if it’s a fragile one, for Kenyan audiences to encounter queer lives. Not as abstract political controversies but as intimate, everyday narratives. Rafiki tells a deliberately modest story, grounded in the innocence of first love and the textures of everyday life in the city.

This matters because being represented is not only about being visible. It’s also about producing audiences. More than depicting queer lives, films like Rafiki shape new viewing communities and new forms of recognition.

In this sense, the unbanning contributes to a slow reconfiguration of African film publics. It suggests that African audiences are not uniformly conservative or inherently hostile to queer narratives. Instead, they are plural and capable of engaging with complex stories about identity, love and desire.

These publics have been changing, thanks in part to streaming platforms and digital technologies. Even where films are banned from cinemas, viewers can still watch, share and debate them online. This shift is important as cinema spaces themselves are declining across many African countries.

African filmmakers

For African filmmakers, the unbanning carries both practical and symbolic importance. Practically, it signals the possibility that national classification regimes may become more negotiable and more responsive to legal challenges and public pressure. The 2018 High Court ruling that temporarily lifted the ban to allow limited screenings had already established an important precedent. The current unbanning consolidates that into institutional practice. It has set a legal precedent.

Symbolically, the decision offers a measure of protection to filmmakers who dare to take aesthetic and political risks. Rafiki was shot cautiously in order to evade state surveillance.

It teaches us that queer storytelling is no longer automatically incompatible with national cinema. This may encourage a new generation of African directors, screenwriters and producers to pursue narratives once seen as too dangerous, too marginal, or too commercially unviable.

But caution should not be thrown to the wind. The unbanning does not signal the end of censorship, nor does it guarantee a hospitable environment for filmmakers. Classification boards still retain broad powers, and political backlash remains likely.

A fragile opening …

The unbanning of Rafiki should not be overstated. Legal prohibitions against same-sex relations remain in force. Violence against queer communities persists, and cultural backlash is inevitable. Yet openings in cultural policy often precede legal and social change, not the other way around.

Cinema, precisely because it works through emotions and the visual, can create the conditions for new ethical and political sensibilities to emerge.

Rafiki’s return ultimately represents a possibility that African films can speak more openly about intimacy, vulnerability and difference. A possibility that African audiences can encounter these stories on their own terms.

Gibson Ncube receives funding from the National Research Foundation (South Africa).

– ref. Rafiki unbanned on appeal: why it’s an important moment for African film – https://theconversation.com/rafiki-unbanned-on-appeal-why-its-an-important-moment-for-african-film-274542

January 30, 2026

If Pope Leo joined Trump’s Board of Peace, it would compromise centuries of ‘positive neutrality’

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Professor of History, Australian Catholic University

Pope Leo XIV is among the world leaders invited to join Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”. Initially aimed at ending the conflict in Gaza, Trump says it will also resolve conflicts globally. The Vatican’s secretary of state has said the pope needs time to consider whether to take part.

Leo, the first pope from the United States, forcefully decried conditions in Gaza in a Christmas Eve address. He has told journalists the only solution to the conflict is a Palestinian state. But the Vatican has long described its foreign policy as “positive neutrality”.

Formal membership of state-sponsored commissions has usually been avoided by the Holy See, the central government of the Catholic Church – which has diplomatic relations with 184 countries, plus the European Union and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, as well as a permanent observer status at the United Nations.

Across nearly two millennia, popes have been deeply involved in peace efforts. They have mediated disputes, facilitated negotiations, opened humanitarian corridors and applied moral pressure to restrain violence. Yet they have almost always done so from the sidelines: carefully positioned close enough to influence outcomes, but far enough away to preserve credibility with all parties.

Papal peacemaking has worked best when the pope could speak to everyone, even those who rejected the political order of the day. Neutrality is not a rhetorical posture, but a practical asset: hard won and easily lost.

Can the papacy maintain independent authority in an increasingly polarised world?

Influence without command

The Holy See has no army, no coercive economic power and no capacity to enforce compliance. What it has possessed, in varying degrees across time, is moral authority, diplomatic reach and access to networks that cross borders, ideologies and regimes.

In late antiquity, popes intervened at moments of acute danger, relying on prestige and symbolic authority rather than force. Pope Leo I’s encounter with Attila the Hun in 452, near Mantua in northern Italy, illustrates this approach. The pope’s message of peace persuaded the ruler of the Huns not to destroy Rome.

The episode captured a durable pattern. Papal influence worked through persuasion, reputation and the claim to speak in the name of a higher moral order.

Raphael’s Meeting of Leo the Great and Attila, completed under Leo X (1513-1521)
Mvsei Vaticani

Between the 10th and 14th centuries, the Peace of God and Truce of God movements sought to limit who could be attacked, when fighting was permitted and how warfare should be conducted. These were not state treaties, but moral frameworks, designed to protect the vulnerable. The church established the right to asylum by proclaiming immunity from violence for those who could not defend themselves.

As medieval diplomacy matured, popes increasingly acted as mediators between rulers. Though the pope was never a neutral observer in a theological sense, he could function as a neutral broker in political terms: precisely because he was not a competing territorial power.

Mediation lowered the cost of compromise by allowing rulers to frame concessions as obedience to moral authority rather than weakness before an enemy.

Neutrality as modern strength

The early modern period expanded the ambition and limits of papal peacemaking. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI drew up boundaries for Spain and Portugal’s colonisation of non-Christian lands. Other European powers increasingly rejected the pope’s authority to allocate sovereignty beyond Christendom.

In 1518, Pope Leo X promoted a general peace among central European Christian rulers, resulting in the Treaty of London. But a century later, the region’s Thirty Years’ War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history. After it ended, European diplomacy became more overtly secular. While the pope could create peace architecture, he could not sustain it once political incentives shifted.

For 1,114 years, popes ruled as absolute monarchs over the Italian territories known as the Papal States, strategically located in central Italy. With their loss, completed in 1870, the pope gained a different kind of leverage.

In the late 19th century, the Holy See aligned itself with emerging legal approaches to peace, including arbitration and international adjudication. It endorsed mechanisms that restrained unilateral force. Neutrality was no longer a defensive posture, but an active diplomatic resource.

Moral authority in total war

The first world war tested the limits of that resource. Pope Benedict XV confronted industrialised mass conflict, in which moral appeals struggled to gain traction. His peace proposal of August 1 1917 outlined principles that would later become familiar: disarmament, arbitration, freedom of the seas and territorial restitution. Governments acknowledged the initiative, but largely rejected its premises.

Pope Benedict XV tried to intervene in World War II.
War of the Nations/Wikimedia Commons

While unsuccessful, Benedict XV’s intervention reinforced a papal vision of peace grounded in law and justice, rather than domination. It entrenched the Holy See’s role as a humanitarian actor, supporting prisoners of war, refugees and civilian relief – even when diplomatic leverage was minimal.

During the second world war, Pope Pius XII adopted a similar posture. His 1939 radio appeal warned war would destroy everything peace could preserve. Throughout the conflict, the Holy See relied on discreet diplomacy and humanitarian networks. Its capacity to mediate was constrained, but its credibility as a channel of communication endured.

In the early nuclear age, successive popes increasingly addressed the ethical implications of weapons capable of annihilation. The emphasis shifted toward global norms, restraint and the need for institutions capable of preventing catastrophe.

Speaking to the world

That shift became explicit in the United Nations era. When Pope Paul VI addressed the UN General Assembly on October 4 1965, his message was not tied to any state interest. “Never again war,” he urged, framing peace as a universal moral obligation rather than a diplomatic bargain.

This has defined much modern papal diplomacy. The Holy See acts through agenda-setting, moral language and support for multilateral norms. It rarely produces treaties directly, but shapes the terms in which peace and war are debated.

The Pope with a cardinal, both in white and red frocks. — ‘Never again war,’ Pope Paul VI (pictured left) urged the UN General Assembly, in 1965.
Picryl

At times, however, the papacy has returned to hands-on mediation. The Beagle Channel dispute between Argentina and Chile in 1978 brought the two states close to war. Both accepted papal mediation, culminating in the 1984 Treaty of Peace and Friendship. Its conditions were consent from both parties, trust in neutrality and a willingness to frame compromise as honourable rather than humiliating.

More recently, Pope Francis was involved in the restoration of diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba, announced on December 17 2014. Symbolic gestures, such as Francis kneeling before South Sudan’s rival leaders in April 2019, reinforced his role as a moral catalyst rather than a governing authority.

Why this invitation is different

Against this long history, Trump’s “Board of Peace” stands out. It is not an ad hoc mediation effort, nor a quiet facilitation role requested by all parties. It is a formally constituted, state-led body, with clear political ownership and governance ambitions. Membership would signal alignment with a specific national framework.

Accepting a seat on such a board might offer influence over humanitarian access, reconstruction priorities and the protection of civilians. It could give the Holy See a voice inside a process that will shape lives on the ground.

But the risks are equally real.

Formal participation could narrow the pope’s room to manoeuvre, making it harder to engage actors who distrust the board’s sponsor. It could blur the line between moral authority and political endorsement.

Joining a state-led board could increase short-term influence, but at the possible cost of long-term credibility. And once neutrality is perceived to be compromised, it is difficult to restore.

Darius von Guttner Sporzynski 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. If Pope Leo joined Trump’s Board of Peace, it would compromise centuries of ‘positive neutrality’ – https://theconversation.com/if-pope-leo-joined-trumps-board-of-peace-it-would-compromise-centuries-of-positive-neutrality-274283

January 30, 2026

Fossil hunters find a new dinosaur track site on South Africa’s coast – the youngest so far

Source: The Conversation – Africa (2) – By Charles Helm, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University

Southern Africa is world renowned for its fossil record of creatures that lived in the very distant past, including dinosaurs. But, about 182 million years ago, a huge eruption of lava covered much of the landscape (the inland Karoo Basin) where most of the dinosaurs roamed. After that, the dinosaur fossil record in the region goes abruptly quiet for the Jurassic Period (which lasted from 201 million to 145 million years ago).

Two exciting recent discoveries confirm, however, that there is more to find of dinosaurs that lived in southern Africa a long time after those lava flows.

First, dinosaur tracks aged around 140 million years were reported in 2025 on a remote stretch of the coast in South Africa’s Western Cape province. These were the first to be found in the region from that geological time period (the Cretaceous, 145 million to 66 million years ago).

Now, we’ve found more.

Our work as a team of ichnologists (studying fossil tracks and traces) often takes us to the Knysna area of the Western Cape coast, where we investigate tracks in coastal aeolianites (cemented sand dunes) in the age range of 50,000 to 400,000 years old.

During one of these visits, early in 2025, we decided to visit a small patch of rock that formed during the early Cretaceous Period. It’s the only place in the vicinity where rock of this age is exposed, and much of it is underwater at high tide. We thought we might be lucky enough to find a theropod (dinosaur) tooth like the one discovered in those rocks by a 13-year-old boy in 2017.

We were pleasantly surprised when instead Linda Helm, a member of our party, told us in a state of excitement that she had found dinosaur tracks. Further examination of the deposits revealed more than two dozen probable tracks.

This so-called Brenton Formation exposure is tiny, no more than 40 metres in length and five metres in width, with cliffs rising from the shore to a maximum of five metres. To find dozens of tracks in this small area suggests a considerable dinosaur presence in the region during the Cretaceous.

In our study we estimate that these tracks are 132 million years old, making them the youngest known dinosaur tracks in southern Africa (50 million years younger than the youngest tracks reported from the Karoo Basin). They form the second record of dinosaur tracks from the South African Cretaceous, and the second record from the Western Cape province. Some of them occur on rock surfaces, while others occur in the cliffs in profile.

Dinosaur fossil treasures

Southern Africa has a wealth of vertebrate tracks and traces from the Mesozoic Era (the “Age of Dinosaurs”, from 252 million to 66 million years ago, a time span that includes the Jurassic) in the Karoo Basin – a vast inland basin filled with thick piles of sedimentary deposits.

Dinosaur tracks from the Triassic and Jurassic periods are abundant in Lesotho and surrounding areas in South Africa’s Free State and Eastern Cape provinces.

But vast quantities of lava, now referred to as the Drakensberg Group, overlaid these track-bearing deposits as a result of large-scale eruptions. A few dinosaurs appear to have briefly survived the initial effects of the lava flows, and were probably among the last vertebrates to inhabit the Karoo Basin.

Then, as the supercontinent of Gondwana fragmented at the end of the Jurassic Period and in the early Cretaceous Period, limited Cretaceous terrestrial deposits formed in rift basins in what are now the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa.

Dinosaur body fossils have been reported from those deposits, mostly from the Eastern Cape. They include the first dinosaur to be identified in the southern hemisphere, now identified as a stegosaur, as well as sauropods, a coelurosaurian and iguanodontid hatchlings and juveniles.

The only examples of dinosaur skeletal material from the Western Cape are a few isolated sauropod teeth, disarticulated bones of a probable sauropod, and two cases from the Knysna area: the theropod tooth mentioned above and a portion of a tibia.

But now we’re after their tracks.

Dinosaurs of Knysna

The tracks we found at Knysna are in the modern intertidal zone, where the high tide covers most of them twice a day.

It would be difficult to imagine a more different scene, 132 million years ago, than the spectacular coastline, magnificent estuary, and lots of development by humans that we encounter today. Back in the early Cretaceous, many dinosaurs would have been visible in the area, perhaps inhabiting tidal channels or point bars (river beaches). The vegetation would also have been very different from that of today.

The Brenton Formation tracks were made by theropods, possibly ornithopods (both these kinds of dinosaur were bipedal, walking on two legs), and possibly sauropods (huge dinosaurs with very long necks and very long tails that were quadrupedal, walking on four legs). Theropods were meat eaters, while ornithopods and sauropods were plant eaters.

It can be challenging at times to distinguish theropod tracks from ornithopod tracks. Sauropod tracks are larger and don’t always have clear digit impressions, also sometimes making them hard to identify with confidence.

In most cases, we have chosen not to “over-interpret” which types of dinosaurs made which tracks, as they just aren’t clear enough. Our research paper simply intends to document that dinosaur tracks of this age are relatively plentiful in the Brenton Formation.

The fact that early Cretaceous dinosaur tracks have now been identified in both the Robberg Formation and the Brenton Formation suggests that more may be found if a search is conducted in appropriate places. There are a number of other exposures of non-marine Cretaceous rocks in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape. Systematic exploration of these deposits is now indicated, in the hope that in addition to finding more dinosaur skeletal material, more dinosaur tracks (and potentially those of other vertebrates) will be identified.

Mark G. Dixon and Fred van Berkel of the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University, contributed to this research.

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. Fossil hunters find a new dinosaur track site on South Africa’s coast – the youngest so far – https://theconversation.com/fossil-hunters-find-a-new-dinosaur-track-site-on-south-africas-coast-the-youngest-so-far-274337

January 30, 2026

Some people gain confidence from thinking things through, others lose it – new research

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sucharit Katyal, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen

Our study shows there is no one-size-fits-all rule like “stop overthinking it” or “think more carefully”, when it comes to decision making.
pexels/karola g, CC BY

Have you ever made a decision, only to find yourself second-guessing it moments later? Maybe you spoke up in a meeting and immediately wondered if you said the wrong thing, or left a social gathering feeling confident, only to replay your actions in your head and feel uncertain. For many of us, reflecting on our choices doesn’t always reassure — sometimes it fuels self-doubt.

As a cognitive scientist, I am fascinated by this gap between what people objectively know and how confident they feel. Indeed, your level of confidence can affect so many things – whether you speak up or act on your ideas, how much you study for an exam or stick with your decisions. And yet, the way confidence develops — or erodes — can vary dramatically between people.

Two factors in particular can play a big role: anxiety and gender. People with higher levels of anxiety often report feeling less confident about their decisions than non-anxious people, even when their choices are just as accurate. Anxiety can make thoughts spiral: “What if I made the wrong choice?” “Did I miss something?” And these mental loops can erode confidence over time.

Women, on the other hand, tend to report lower confidence levels than men across a variety of tasks, despite performing equally well.

This is thought to arise from social and cultural factors. Feedback, expectations and stereotypes can subtly influence self-perception, making women more likely to underestimate their abilities.

Confidence over time

With these differences in mind, I began to wonder: if confidence is shaped so differently by anxiety and gender, what happens when people spend extra time thinking about a decision? Does reflection help everyone, or might it push some people further into self-doubt?

Man sits in chair in a lecture with a pencil to his lip, deep in thought. — A moment of confidence can quickly turn into second-guessing when we replay our decisions.
pexels mikhail nilov, CC BY

To answer this, in our new study, my colleagues and I looked at how participants performed different memory and visual discrimination tasks, while rating their confidence after each answer. By tracking how these ratings changed with elapsed time, we could see how confidence changes as people reflect on their decisions — and how these changes differ depending on gender and the severity of anxiety symptoms.

What we found was that participants with higher anxiety were not just underconfident — but that spending more time thinking made them even less sure of themselves. This happened even when their answers were correct.

For women, however, extra reflection had the opposite effect. Carefully reviewing the task allowed them to gradually feel more confident. Over time, this reduced the usual confidence gap between women and men, until both genders were equally certain in their decisions.

In short, the same behaviour — reflecting on a decision — was found to have the opposite effect depending on what factor (gender or anxiety) made a person feel underconfident in the first place.

Why this matters

So why does thinking longer produce such different outcomes? For anxious people, it seems that longer reflection time can become ruminative, amplifying worries and imagined errors. While for women, reflection can be constructive, allowing careful consideration of evidence and performance.

This distinction highlights a simple but powerful point: confidence isn’t about how long you think — it’s about how you think. In other words, deliberation that carefully evaluates evidence can boost confidence, while rumination can erode it.

So what does this mean for future decision-making?

Well, if you tend to be anxious, more thinking isn’t always better. Limit rumination, focus on concrete evidence and set clear decision rules to prevent your confidence from spiralling downward.

And if you you’re a woman and you tend to underestimate your abilities, taking some time to review the evidence and outcomes may well help your confidence better reflect reality.

And what, you might ask, if I’m both a woman and have anxiety — how will I respond? Well, that would depend on which of your biases are more dominant, anxiety-related or gender related.

And if the two are similar, then your underconfidence might stay the same over time: not getting better, but also not worsening. For you, it might be worth trying out both ways of decision-making in a low-stakes situation to see which serves you better.

The bottom line, though, is that there’s no one-size-fits-all rule like “stop overthinking it” or “think more carefully” when it comes to decision-making.

Instead, you should focus on being aware of how your mind’s emotional and social habits shape your levels of confidence, so you can make better choices and trust yourself when it’s justified to do so. This can help turn reflection from a source of doubt into a tool for self-assurance.

This article was commissioned as part of a partnership between
Videnskab.dk and The Conversation.

Sucharit Katyal received a fellowship from Koa Health.

– ref. Some people gain confidence from thinking things through, others lose it – new research – https://theconversation.com/some-people-gain-confidence-from-thinking-things-through-others-lose-it-new-research-273625

January 30, 2026

Trump’s clash with the gun lobby

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate Editor, The Conversation

This article was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

The US government’s reaction to the killing of Alex Pretti last weekend – and of Renée Good a fortnight earlier – was a grim reminder of George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which: “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

In similar fashion, senior members of the Trump administration asked the American people to reject freely available video evidence of the two killings. They claimed that Pretti, a nurse at a local veterans’ hospital, was a “domestic terrorist”, that he was “brandishing a handgun”, and was “an assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents”. Good, a mother of three, supposedly “viciously ran over the ICE officer” who then put three bullets in her head.

Given that video evidence flatly contradicts those statements, this could yet prove a serious overreach on the part of Donald Trump and his lieutenants. Already border patrol commander Greg Bovino, who was in charge of ICE operations in Minneapolis, has been removed. And there’s speculation that Kristi Noem, US secretary of homeland security, is under serious pressure.

How BBC Verify analysed available video footage of Alex Pretti’s death.

One of the more objectionable claims from some of the people looking to blame the victims, writes Andrew Gawthorpe, was the claim made by several Trump officials – and the president himself – that by carrying a gun, Pretti had been asking for trouble.

As you might expect, this drew a sharp reaction from both the National Rifle Association and the Gun Owners of America. These two organisations, who are among Trump’s staunchest backers, reminded the administration of the second amendment right to bear arms, even to a protest – something which also brings in the first amendment right to free expression.

Gawthorpe, an expert in US history and politics at Leiden University, points to the dramatic irony at play here. The express intention of the second amendment was to allow American citizens to arm themselves against a tyrannical government. He concludes: “While some gun rights advocates may have been willing to keep quiet while federal agents were trampling on the rights of migrants and brown-skinned citizens, the murder of Pretti is a bridge too far.”

Meanwhile Mark Shanahan, a professor of political engagement at the University of Surrey, addresses some important points raised by Pretti’s killing. What are federal agents doing on the streets of Minneapolis in the first place, what will the episode mean for Trump’s popularity, and what can be done to prevent further violence?

When it comes to the last question, he argues that the removal of one of the key ICE personnel from the city is a start. Proper congressional scrutiny of ICE’s funding, which is set to sharply increase again this year, would also appear appropriate.

George Lewis, a professor of American history at the University of Leicester, reminds us that Americans have fought back against authoritarianism before. From the 1930s to the 1970s, the House Un-American Activities Committee (Huac) terrorised liberal Americans in its bid to root out communism and (vaguely defined) “un-American” activities such as campaigning for civil rights.

However, a concerted campaign by liberal lawmakers including Jimmy Roosevelt inside Congress, as well as legions of well-organised activists, managed to consign Huac to history’s dustbin in 1975.

Ukraine: diplomatic stalemate

We’re still waiting to hear whether Vladimir Putin plans to sign up to Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”. But the signs aren’t all that good. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was making some positive noises earlier this week about the prospect of securing security guarantees from Washington. This followed the latest round of talks in Abu Dhabi – at which, for the first time, representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the US came together to talk about ways to end the war.

But almost as soon as Zelensky had revealed his optimism that a deal might be possible, American sources indicated that in return for US security guarantees, Ukraine would have to accept the loss of the parts of the Donbas region it still occupies. This is a non-starter, as Ukraine considers the territory strategically vital.

As Stefan Wolff points out, we’ve been here before. Zelensky can’t accept this condition – and even if he does, Putin won’t accept US guarantees. Trump, meanwhile, will more than likely blame the Ukrainian president for the lack of a deal.

After 12 months of Trump’s second term, the unreliability of the US as an ally for Europe and the rest of Nato is becoming ever more evident. The US president’s Board of Peace appears designed to undermine the United Nations, while his negative rhetoric about US military allies, including the UK, appeared calculated to cause maximum offence (even if Trump later walked back some of his more controversial statements).

David Dunn, a specialist in the US and international security at the University of Birmingham, believes that while Trump may see the world in terms of great power competition, the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland revealed a growing determination on the part of “medium-sized powers” to face up to this new reality – and begin building a new system that does not rely on Washington to make the running.

War in Iran?

After calling on the people of Iran to keep protesting a fortnight ago, promising that “help is on its way”, the US president has ordered a “beautiful armada” into the Gulf, from where it can put pressure on Iran. In fact, the deployment of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group appears designed to get the Islamic Republic to dismantle its nuclear programme.

But the likelihood of this developing into full-scale conflict between the US and Iran is very slim, writes Bamo Nouri. He thinks it doubtful that US action can easily dislodge the regime. Despite the widespread recent protests, the Islamic Republic remains firmly embedded and has spent decades preparing for a possible war with the US.

Nouri, a journalist and international relations expert at City St George’s, University of London, believes that any conflict between the US and Iran would almost certainly destabilise the entire Middle East – and would be highly likely to spread. It’s the last thing that America’s allies in the region want, he concludes.

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– ref. Trump’s clash with the gun lobby – https://theconversation.com/trumps-clash-with-the-gun-lobby-274675