This happens so frequently that popular media has even coined the name “Quitter’s Day” for the second Friday in January –when most people have given up on their resolutions.
However, there is a way to continue your self-improvement goals and find success by making changes that offer incremental rewards instead of frustration. My students and clients are consistently surprised by how small actions and practices bring about big rewards. Below are a few manageable and meaningful practices to adopt that can last well after the new year’s motivation fades.
One of the reasons resolutions tend to fail is that they usually involve putting a metric on success.A major reason for failure in New Year’s resolutions is that people set unrealistic goals.
The problem is that these types of commitments force us to do something we don’t really want to do. And success takes time: It can take more than six weeks before improvements from exercise become apparent.
It comes as no surprise, then, that these goals are often short-lived and unsuccessful in the long term – it is hard to be successful when we are battling ourselves to do things that don’t come naturally, without immediate rewards. In reality, people prefer immediate gratification and simultaneously tend to downplay the benefit of waiting for longer-term rewards.
Be kind – to yourself
We are often much nicer to our friends, and even to strangers, than we are to ourselves.
Kristin Neff, a psychologist and leader in self-compassion research, teaches that by mindfully quieting our inner critic and being as compassionate to ourselves as we would be to a friend, we can significantly improve our well-being.
In my personal and professional life, I have seen people succeed most often when they change how they relate to themselves. In other words, instead of being intensely critical of our emotions and what we are thinking, we are able to be gentler with our experience and be more accepting of our own thoughts and feelings. When we receive these emotional rewards, we feel relief and happiness – payoffs that make it far easier to enthusiastically repeat the pattern.
Instead of focusing on whether you succeeded on your initial resolutions, try journaling three good things at the end of each day. In doing so, focus less on the big successes – though they count, too – and instead on the small moments you enjoyed, such as the hug from a friend, the quiet moment with coffee or the smile from a stranger.
Practice random acts of kindness to boost mood and well-being. Reach out to a friend you haven’t talked to in a while or buy coffee for a stranger in the coffee shop. These activities provide an emotional boost that can last for hours, if not days.
Making these small shifts can help stave off the stress and guilt that can thwart your self-improvement goals.
The well-known practice of mindfulness encourages paying attention – without judgment – to the present moment.
Research shows that taking time to slow down and savor the moment has substantial physical and psychological benefits, such as lowering stress and improving focus, among others. In fact, mindfulness even has the power to change brain connections, leading to greater control over our emotions.
This approach can also be applied to meal-time and diet, a popular focus of New Year’s resolutions. Using the practice of mindfulness can also help us shift from a judgmental and restrictive view of food to a focus on enjoyment and savoring.
So instead of eliminating certain foods or thinking of foods as either good or bad, slow down and savor your food. This can look like taking a moment to take in what your food looks and smells like, and chewing your food slowly, noticing the taste and texture – like a wine-tasting experience but with your meal.
My clients often tell me how eating more mindfully helped change their relationship with food. One client said that instead of thinking about how much she was eating, she instead experienced how much she liked the taste of her meal and the sense of fullness when she felt she had eaten enough.
So perhaps this year, instead of focusing on willpower or restriction, choose connection with yourself and others instead.
Doing so will improve your happiness and your overall well-being, long after the New Year’s resolutions fade.
Michele Patterson Ford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In Tana Toraja, a mountainous region of Sulawesi, Indonesia, villagers pour massive resources into funeral rituals: lavish feasts, ornate effigies and prized water buffaloes for sacrifice.
I witnessed this funeral ritual in 2024 while accompanying scholar Melanie Nyhof on her fieldwork. Families were expected to stage funerals that matched the social standing of the dead, even if it meant selling land, taking out loans or calling on distant kin for help.
In my own work of studying communal mourning rituals, I take part in ceremonies to see how they unfold.
At one of the ceremonies I attended in Tana Toraja, hundreds gathered as gongs echoed through the valley. Guests were served meals over several days, dancers in bright headdresses performed for the crowd, and water buffalo – the most valuable gift a family can give – were led into the courtyard for sacrifice. Mourners described these acts as ways of honoring the deceased.
It wasn’t just in the villages of Tana Toraja that families and clans used rituals to express loyalty for people they knew personally. I saw the same dynamics in cities, where national funerals can draw millions of strangers into a shared experience of unity and loss for a person they never met.
In 2022, my colleagues and I surveyed more than 1,600 members of the British public a few days after Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral – both those who had traveled to London to be part of the crowds, and others who had watched the ceremony live on television.
Spectators reported intense grief and a connection with fellow mourners when they viewed the ceremony. On average, they described their sadness as intense. Most also said they felt a strong sense of unity – not only with people standing alongside them, but even with strangers across the nation who shared in the moment.
The effects were especially pronounced for those who had attended in person.
To see whether that sense of unity translated into action, we also used a behavioral measure using a mild deception task. All participants would receive a digital £15 (US$20) voucher for completing the survey, which would be emailed to them 48 hours later.
Toward the end of the survey, however, participants were asked whether they would be willing to donate money from their voucher for taking part in the survey. They indicated this via a sliding scale, from £0-£15 ($0 to $20.25) in £1 ($1.35) increments. Participants were led to believe that the funds would go to a new U.K. charity designed to educate future generations about the importance of the monarchy.
At the end of the study, participants were debriefed: The charity was fictional, and no money was actually taken; so regardless of how much they thought they were donating, all participants received the full compensation.
The results were striking. Those who felt the strongest grief also reported greater connection to both fellow mourners and fellow citizens; they were more likely to pledge to the monarchist cause. We later tested whether these effects fade quickly or leave a lasting imprint.
In a forthcoming study, we followed British spectators for up to eight months after Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. Those who experienced the most sadness during the ceremony formed especially vivid emotional memories, which prompted months of reflection. That reflection, in turn, reshaped how people saw themselves – a personal identity shift that predicted enduring feelings of unity with others who had shared the experience.
Crucially, this sense of “we-ness” was strongest among those who had been physically present together and continued to predict willingness to volunteer long after the funeral ended.
In other words, grief didn’t just wash over people passively; it mobilized them toward concrete acts of loyalty and generosity. And importantly, this wasn’t limited to those who had traveled to London. Even people who only watched the funeral on television still showed some of the same effects, though less strongly.
Anthropologists have long reported that funerals and other rituals can create a profound sense of bonding that can outlive the ceremony itself. Our research suggests that shared rituals of mourning can foster unity at scale, reaching far beyond those physically present.
Furthermore, shared suffering forges identity and binds people together long after the ritual itself has passed.
Anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse’s research shows that when people endure intense suffering together, they don’t just feel closer – they come to see one another as if they were family. This kinlike bond helps explain why groups who undergo hardship together often display extreme loyalty and self-sacrifice. This is true even for strangers.
When rituals divide
But are those bonds always open-ended? Or do they sometimes channel generosity inward, toward one’s own group?
At Pope Francis’ funeral in 2025, we surveyed 146 people immediately after they had viewed his body lying in state in St. Peter’s Basilica. We asked them to rate the extent of their discomfort waiting in line.
Mourners at Pope Francis’ funeral felt motivated to offer more to charities. Andrew Medichini/AP Photo
Some had waited overnight without food or water, and all had queued for hours in the unrelenting Roman sun. At the end of the survey, participants were invited to donate to one of two charities: a new Catholic aid organization or the International Red Cross.
As we predicted, the people who rated their experience waiting in line as the most uncomfortable also pledged the most money. But there was a twist. Almost all of that generosity flowed to the Catholic charity. Donations to the Red Cross were strikingly low, even though Red Cross volunteers had been circulating through the crowd, offering water and assistance. The difference in giving was not due to a difference in awareness or salience. What mattered was whether the cause felt part of the shared experience people had just endured.
This finding aligns with the work of my collaborator, anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas, who has demonstrated that group rituals both “bind and blind.” These ceremonial rituals blind by narrowing generosity, channeling it mainly toward one’s own group, such as through the funerary ritual studies we conducted.
When shared suffering bridges divides
But shared suffering can sometimes do the opposite – not narrowing solidarity, but expanding it.
In other research I conducted after the catastrophic earthquakes in Turkey in 2023, with my colleague, anthropologist Sevgi Demiroglu, we surveyed 120 survivors across some of the most heavily impacted regions. Nearly half had lost a loved one, a third had lost their homes, and the vast majority showed signs of post-traumatic stress.
Participants were asked how intensely they had felt negative emotions such as fear and anxiety during the quakes; crucially, how much they believed those emotions were shared by others – whether family members, other Turkish survivors or Syrian refugees who were also affected.
Survivors who felt their suffering was shared reported a stronger sense of oneness, with those groups. And that sense of bonding predicted action. Even after losing nearly everything, many said they were just as willing to volunteer time to help fellow Turkish survivors as if they were their own families. Strikingly, this willingness extended even to ethnic communities often regarded with suspicion, suggesting that shared suffering can temporarily override social and political divides.
In this case, there were no collective grief rituals to help process loss. Yet the same underlying mechanism was visible: Shared suffering brought people together like kin. Grief rituals can take this raw bond and stabilize it – giving shared loss a durable social form.
Perhaps, grief rituals remind us that in grief, as in life, we are not alone.
Claire White receives funding from Templeton Religion Trust TRT-2021-10490.
Dans cet entretien avec The Conveersation Africa, il explique qu’il existe des différences frappantes entre ces deux hommes.
Museveni est au pouvoir depuis près de quatre décennies. Amin a duré huit ans. Comment expliquer la longévité de Museveni ?
J’essaie d’expliquer dans mon livre les principales raisons qui ont permis à Museveni de rester au pouvoir pendant plus de quatre décennies. Je pense que ces raisons sont à la fois internes et externes.
Il n’a pas seulement fait comme les Britanniques qui prenaient des groupes éthniques existants et les politisaient en structures tribales. Il est allé plus loin: il a pris des sous-groupes éthniques et en a fait des tribus.
Pas seulement comme l’ont fait les Britanniques, en prenant les groupes ethniques existants et en les politisant pour en faire des structures politiques que nous appelons tribus. Mais plus que cela, en prenant certains sous-groupes ethniques et en les transformant en tribus. Ainsi, à partir de moins de 20 tribus, il en a créé plus de 100. C’est un processus sans fin.
Et puis il y a la raison externe. Contrairement à Amin, qui était l’ennemi juré des grandes puissances occidentales, Museveni s’est imposé comme leur allié privilégié et protégé.
**Certains analystes semblent suggérer que ce n’est que maintenant, en particulier depuis que son fils a commencé à faire des déclarations politiques, que la politique ougandaise se militarise. Mais un thème qui ressort clairement de votre livre est que, sous Amin comme sous Museveni, l’armée s’est substituée à l’organisation politique…
Je pense que c’est une lecture correcte du livre. Maintenant, dans le cadre de cette comparaison très large, il existe des différences importantes dans la voie empruntée par Amin.
Amin a été recruté comme enfant soldat par les Britanniques à l’âge de 14 ans environ. Il a été formé à ce qu’ils appellent les arts de la contre-insurrection, ce qui est en réalité un terme poli pour désigner le terrorisme d’État. Il avait l’habitude de démontrer publiquement, en particulier aux chefs d’État africains, par exemple lors de leur réunion au Maroc, comment il pouvait étouffer quelqu’un avec un mouchoir.
Et Amin a subi une sorte de transformation au cours de la première année qui a suivi son accession au pouvoir.
Il a accédé au pouvoir grâce à l’aide directe des Britanniques et des Israéliens. Les Israéliens, en particulier, ont conseillé à Amin qu’il ne pouvait pas se contenter de renverser le premier président de l’Ouganda après l’indépendance Milton Obote et penser que l’affaire était close. Il devait aussi s’occuper de ses acolytes, les personnes qu’il avait placées à des postes clés, et le retour de bâtons devait arriver d’un moment à l’autre.
Pour éviter cela, il avait choisi de les éliminer. Sa première année au pouvoir fut brutale. Il a tué des centaines de personnes dans différents camps militaires. Il s’agissait de massacres, il n’y a pas d’autre mot pour les qualifier.
Puis, après cela, il s’est rendu en Israël et en Grande-Bretagne avec une liste de demandes. Il pensait avoir rendu service aux Israéliens et aux Britanniques et s’attendait qu’ils fassent de même. Mais ceux-ci ont trouvé cela amusant, et il s’est senti humilié. Il a cherché une alternative, et c’est ainsi qu’il a rencontré, par l’intermédiaire du président égyptien Anwar Sadat, puis par le dirigeant libyen Mouammar Kadhafi, le leader soudanais, Gaafar Muhammad Nimeiry. Amin, avec l’empereur éthiopien Haile Selassie, a joué un rôle clé dans l’accord d’Addis-Abeba de 1972 qui a mis fin à la première guerre civile au Soudan.
Au cours des deux années qui ont suivi son arrivée au pouvoir, je n’ai pas eu connaissance de nouveaux massacres. Il a continué à tuer ses opposants, mais il n’a pas étendu les meurtres à la famille, aux amis, aux clans ou simplement aux groupes auxquels la personne était identifiée ou associée. Ses meurtres ressemblaient davantage à ceux d’un dictateur qui recourt à la violence pour écraser ses opposants.
C’est très différent dans le cas de Museveni. Museveni est arrivé au pouvoir avec la conviction que la violence est essentielle à la politique, et particulièrement à la politique de libération. Museveni est un fervent adepte de Frantz Fanon, en particulier Les Damnés de la Terre. Et la principale leçon qu’il tire de Fanon est le caractère essentiel de la violence dans toute politique d’émancipation.
J’essaie donc de retracer le cheminement qui a conduit Museveni à considérer la violence comme un élément central du démantèlement d’un État oppressif, pour aboutir à l’idée que la violence est un élément central de la construction d’un État. Il arrive ainsi à la conclusion inverse. Et cela bien avant que son fils n’entre en scène.
J’ai consacré tout un chapitre de mon livre aux premières décennies qui ont suivi 1986, lorsque Museveni est arrivé au pouvoir, à ses opérations dans le nord et aux massacres et meurtres successifs, Il affirmait poursuivre la guerre contre le terrorisme, qui avait commencé après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001 aux États-Unis.
Et ces affirmations ont été acceptées telles quelles par la communauté internationale, c’est-à-dire les puissances occidentales.
Diriez-vous donc que la guerre contre le terrorisme a été une aubaine pour Museveni, l’aidant à faire avancer son agenda ?
Tout à fait. Depuis le programme d’ajustement structurel de la fin des années 1980, il a compris que s’il voulait étouffer l’opposition dans son pays, il aurait besoin d’un soutien étranger, et que ce soutien lui serait accordé s’il se présentait comme un acteur central dans la guerre contre le terrorisme.
Museveni était suffisamment intelligent pour comprendre que la politique étrangère américaine et l’intervention militaire américaine avaient des limites politiques, notamment le nombre de pertes américaines acceptables. Et lorsque ces meurtres ont eu lieu en Somalie, lors de l’incident Black Hawk Down (La chute d’un faucon noir), Museveni a proposé ses services.
Il a envoyé ses soldats en Somalie. Vous vous souvenez de ce slogan, « des solutions africaines pour les problèmes africains ». Museveni a proposé cette solution africaine au Soudan du Sud, au Rwanda, dans l’est du Congo. La solution africaine n’était qu’un nom sophistiqué pour désigner le massacre d’Africains par des Africains au service des puissances impériales. Et c’est ce qui s’est finalement produit.
Vous recommandez une fédération comme la solution la plus susceptible de réussir dans l’Ouganda post-Museveni. Existe-t-il actuellement une base politique pour cela ? Ou faudrait-il que quelque chose se produise pour que la fédération proposée aboutisse ?
Ceux d’entre nous qui sont des nationalistes militants et des indépendants ont compris que la fédération était un projet britannique. Nous savions que la droite favorable à la création de fiefs tribaux utilisait la fédération comme écran pour masquer son agenda. Nous avons compris que c’était leur façon de saper toute tentative de construire un État nationaliste fort.
Mais depuis lors, avec la construction d’un État fort, nous avons compris que les conditions et les temps avaient changé. L’organisation locale, l’autonomie locale, ont pris une signification très différente.
C’est un moyen de résister au développement de l’autocratie du pouvoir central et je pense que les gens commencent à en tirer des leçons.
Maintenant, la question est de savoir quel type de fédération, car Museveni a également promu quelque chose qui ressemble à une fédération. Mais il a, comme en Éthiopie, promu ce que l’on peut appeler un fédéralisme ethnique.
Ainsi, dans chaque entité, il a séparé la majorité de la minorité: la majorité appartenant au groupe éthnique considéré comme “historique” sur le territoire et la minorité issue d’autres groupes éthniques, qui, bien que vivant dans le pays et y étant nés, se voient toujours privés de droits.
C’est ce qui s’est passé en Éthiopie. Si vous regardez l’Éthiopie, si vous regardez le Soudan, vous verrez que les Britanniques ont politisé les groupes ethniques et les ont transformés en tribus. Et puis, après le colonialisme, nous avons militarisé ces tribus. Nous avons donc créé des milices tribales. C’est ce qu’ils ont fait en Éthiopie. Ce sont les combats entre différentes milices tribales. C’est ce qu’ils ont fait au Soudan. Ils ont créé des milices tribales, d’abord au Darfour, puis dans d’autres endroits. C’est l’armée nationale qui a dirigé la création de ces milices tribales. Ce sont ensuite les milices tribales qui ont commencé à engloutir l’État.
La guerre civile qui sévit actuellement oppose donc l’armée nationale et les milices tribales. C’est le même processus que celui observé en Ouganda. Nous n’en sommes pas encore arrivés à créer des milices tribales, mais nous avons fabriqué tribu après tribu afin de fragmenter le pays.
Certaines des tendances que vous décrivez à propos de l’Ouganda se retrouvent dans la plupart des pays africains. Quelles leçons peut-on en tirer pour l’avenir du reste du continent africain ?
D’une manière générale, on observe ces tendances dans de nombreux pays africains. Le modèle colonial britannique est devenu le modèle colonial dominant. Même les Français, connus pour leurs préférences assimilationnistes, ont adopté la domination indirecte lorsqu’ils sont passés de l’assimilation à ce qu’ils appelaient l’association dans les années 1930. Et les Portugais ont suivi les Français.
Les Sud-Africains ont été les derniers à suivre le mouvement – ils ont appelé cela apartheid. Mais c’était la même chose, la création de homelands, la tribalisation des différences locales. C’est donc une tendance dans la pensée du continent.
L’alternative a souvent été la centralisation. Le continent oscille ainsi entre pouvoir autocratique et centralisé et des pouvoirs tribaux fragmentés.
Je propose une troisième voie. Je propose une fédération plus ethnique. Je propose une fédération davantage basée sur le territoire, davantage basée sur le lieu où vous vivez. Ainsi, peu importe d’où vous venez, le simple fait que vous viviez là signifie que vous avez lié votre destin à celui des autres personnes qui y vivent pour créer un avenir commun.
Et ce qui importe en politique, plus que votre origine, c’est la décision de construire un avenir commun. La migration est une caractéristique de la société humaine. La société humaine n’est pas née des patries. La patrie est donc une fiction coloniale.
L’idée que les Africains ne se déplaçaient pas, qu’ils étaient liés à un territoire particulier, est absurde, car les Africains se déplaçaient plus que quiconque. Nous savons que l’humanité est née en Afrique et s’est répandue dans le reste du monde. Alors, où se trouve la patrie ? Vous pouvez avoir une patrie pour cette génération, pour les générations précédentes, mais tous les Africains ont une histoire de migration. C’est, je pense, un élément central.
La voie à suivre : l’une est une fédération qui consolide la démocratie plutôt que de l’éroder.
La deuxième voie à suivre consiste à réfléchir de manière critique à l’ensemble du modèle économique néolibéral et à l’autonomisation des élites, qu’elles soient raciales, ethniques ou autres.
Je pense que nous devons trouver un modèle économique différent. Mais comme vous le dites, le livre n’est pas consacré à la recherche de solutions. Il est consacré à l’idée que nous devons comprendre le problème avant de nous précipiter vers des solutions.
Et chaque pays aura ses propres nuances qui sont ifférentes de celles de l’Ouganda.
Mahmood Mamdani 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.
It is late, the ward is crowded, and the clock is moving faster than everyone would like. A doctor has stabilised the patient as best they can, but one thing is missing – blood.
A relative is asked to “try somewhere else”, and within minutes, the family is on the phone, calling friends, contacting church groups, posting in WhatsApp chats, hoping that someone nearby is eligible, willing and able to reach the hospital in time.
In that moment, healthcare stops being only about medicine. It becomes about networks, trust and whether a lifesaving resource can be found quickly enough.
This is not an unusual drama in Ghana. It is a recurring reality, quietly shaping outcomes in emergencies, childbirth, surgery and severe illness. Ghana has made progress, but the gap between what is needed and what is available remains wide.
In 2024, Ghana’s National Blood Service collected 187,280 units of blood. This falls far short of the World Health Organization recommended annual stock requirement of 308,000 units. The consequences are tangible, including delays to surgery, difficult clinical decisions, and families carrying the burden of searching for blood at the worst possible time.
One way to gauge the scale is the “blood collection index”, defined as donations per 1,000 people. Ghana’s index increased from 5.9 in 2023 to 6.1 in 2024, but it remains well below the ten per 1,000 level that is often cited as a basic benchmark by the WHO.
The contrast is stark. The WHO’s global figures show an average (median) donation rate of 31.5 per 1,000 in high-income countries, compared with 6.6 per 1,000 in lower- and middle-income countries and 5.0 per 1,000 in low-income countries. Ghana is a low-income country, yet its donation level remains below average for this group of countries, underscoring a persistent gap between demand and supply.
Why does this matter so much? Because blood availability is not a niche issue. It underpins everyday healthcare and becomes decisive in emergencies.
Few examples are more urgent than childbirth. Postpartum haemorrhage (severe bleeding after delivery) can escalate rapidly, and survival often depends on timely transfusion.
In 2025, the WHO highlighted that bleeding following childbirth causes nearly 45,000 deaths globally each year. When anaemia is common, the danger increases further: women have less physiological “buffer” against blood loss.
Women who enter labour with severe anaemia have around seven times higher odds of dying or becoming critically ill from heavy bleeding after childbirth, compared to those with moderate anaemia. In plain terms, they start with less room for error, and without fast access to transfusion, things can spiral quickly.
So why is Ghana’s blood supply so difficult to secure? Part of the answer is structural. Blood services require investment in collection, testing, transport at the right temperature and distribution networks.
These systems must work reliably every day, not only during crises. Yet the demand is rising with population growth and expanding clinical services, while resources remain constrained. The result is a system that is often stretched, especially outside major urban centres.
Another part of the story is how donations are sourced. In many settings, a stable supply depends on a large base of regular voluntary donors. Ghana is still working towards that goal.
In 2024, voluntary donations nationwide decreased from 40% to 29%, even as regional blood centres saw some improvement. That matters because heavy reliance on replacement donors (family members or friends recruited at the point of need) creates unpredictability. Emergencies do not wait for someone to finish work, travel across town and pass eligibility screening.
Then there is trust. People don’t donate in a vacuum; they donate into a system they believe in.
In our ongoing national survey in Ghana on people’s blood donation experiences, trust is clearly concentrated in familiar and formal sources. Around nine in ten respondents report trust in requests coming from a family member or close friend, and similarly high trust in requests issued by an official hospital or clinic.
Trust drops as the source becomes more distant or less verifiable, with markedly higher scepticism towards non-hospital community donation groups and, most of all, unknown people.
Yet high trust in hospitals does not automatically translate into action. When people are unsure how blood is used, whether it reaches patients fairly, or whether it might be diverted or sold, willingness can stall.
Even when people want to help, uncertainty can lead to hesitation: “Will this really go where they say it will?” In a high-stakes context, doubt is costly.
This gap points to a transparency problem, where confidence depends not only on who makes the request, but also on whether the system can credibly show where the blood goes.
Finally, communication channels shape outcomes. When a hospital lacks a rapid, reliable way to reach suitable donors, it falls back on what is available: phone calls, personal networks and social media posts.
But social feeds are noisy, messages get buried, and not everyone has the same connectivity or social reach. The ability to mobilise donors becomes uneven, depending on who you know, where you live, and how quickly information travels.
None of this means Ghana lacks goodwill. In fact, the opposite is often true: communities respond generously when they understand a need and feel confident their help will make a difference. The challenge is that goodwill alone cannot compensate for gaps in infrastructure, coordination and trust.
Telling people to “donate more” is not a strategy if the system cannot consistently reach donors, support them and show them that their contribution mattered.
The solution?
What would meaningful progress look like? It starts with stronger hospital services and blood-bank capacity, so that safe collection, testing and storage can happen consistently.
Alongside that, Ghana needs a more organised digital way to mobilise donors: a channel that can reach the right people quickly, rather than relying on broad social media appeals that get buried, skimmed past, or spread too widely without finding eligible donors nearby.
A well-run system could also keep clear, traceable records for each donation and request, making it easier to show where blood goes and to coordinate fast, accountable responses when an emergency hits.
That is exactly the gap our research is tackling. We’re developing a hospital-linked digital platform designed for Ghana’s realities. Here, urgent requests can be sent quickly to nearby eligible donors through a trusted channel, with location-aware matching and follow-up rather than blanket posts. It also builds in transparent, auditable donation-to-use tracking, helping hospitals coordinate emergencies more efficiently while giving donors clearer reassurance about where their blood goes.
Because, in the end, the story of blood in Ghana is not only about shortages. It is about a simple question with life-or-death consequences: when someone is bleeding, will help arrive in time?
This article was commissioned in conjunction with Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025.
This article was commissioned in conjunction with Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025.
Michael Head has previously received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Research England and the UK Department for International Development, and currently receives funding from the UK Medical Research Foundation, and UK Research and Innovation
Honghui Shen receives funding from the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre.
Markus Brede receives funding from UK Research and Innovation and has previously received funding from the Royal Society and the Alan Turing Institute.
Growing up in Greece, wildfires were a constant presence each summer. In 2007, I remember watching TV footage of fires ravaging the Peloponnese peninsula and island of Evia, destroying forests and homes, taking lives. The sight of helicopters and firefighting aircraft crossing the smoky skies was both terrifying and awe-inspiring.
Then when I was 17, flames crept dangerously close to my home in Kavala, northern Greece. I recall standing outside with water-hose in hand, scanning the horizon and hoping our nearby treeless street would stop the fire’s advance. Thankfully, firefighting aircraft reached the area just in time – but the feeling of vulnerability at seeing how easily entire landscapes could be consumed stayed with me.
Those experiences shaped my curiosity about how people could better respond to such disasters. Wildfires are becoming more intense, frequent and harder to manage worldwide as fire seasons become longer, affecting communities from California to Australia.
According to the UN environment programme, longer droughts, heatwaves, and erratic winds are pushing ecosystems past their natural limits, endangering both human lives and biodiversity. Nasa reports that extreme wildfire activity has more than doubled worldwide over the past two decades.
In 2018, Greece suffered the deadliest wildfires in its modern history when fires in the southern seaside town of Mati and in the general Attica region claimed over 100 lives. The devastation renewed my determination to find better ways to combat fires.
The following year, while doing a master’s degree in robotics at the University of Bristol, I joined a hackathon event, organised by the UK government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, about using “swarm intelligence”, AI and drones to improve wildfire detection and response.
Swarm intelligence describes the exchange of information by decentralised, self-organised systems in order to solve complex problems. It is inspired by such collective behaviour in nature, for example by flocks of birds or swarms of insects. The competition sparked my interest to investigate how these tools could be used in such potentially catastrophic events.
After the hackathon, my supervisor Sabine Hauert, a professor of swarm engineering, and I were approached by Windracers, a UK company specialising in heavy-lift drones capable of carrying hundreds of kilograms of payloads including water to remote areas.
Transforming my childhood wildfire experiences into tangible technology through a PhD project was irresistible. The challenge was how to develop these drones into a swarm that could be used for quicker and more effective detection of, and response to, potentially catastrophic wildfires.
XPrize challenge
Today, I lead the Aura team (short for Autonomous Ubiquitous Response with Aware Robots), one of 15 semi-finalists in the wildfire section of XPrize – the series of competitions seeking technological solutions for the world’s “most urgent and complex challenges”. We were also chosen to be one of the Prototypes for Humanity exhibiting in Dubai in 2025.
Aura comprises experts from the universities of Bristol and Sheffield plus members of Lancashire Fire and Rescue. The challenge set by XPrize was simple to describe, but technologically demanding: monitor 1,000 square kilometres of land for a full day and, upon detecting a fire, extinguish it within ten minutes.
Aura’s technology stems in part from my PhD research during the pandemic lockdowns. Unable to work in the lab, I reached out to firefighters, foresters and emergency professionals worldwide for insights. Through interviews and focus groups including extensive collaboration with the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, who frequently use drones when responding to wildfires, we shaped the swarm system based on real operational needs.
The Aura team do a wildfire detection test using swarming drones, October 2025. Video: Aura.
Our approach uses commercially available drones, such as quadcopters, equipped with custom software that transforms them into a coordinated swarm. Like a flock of birds, they operate without a central leader, relying on interactions with one another about their location and other information to continuously adapt to their environment.
This allows a single operator to control multiple drones simultaneously, because the drones perform some tasks safely without any need for human intervention. This is an essential capability for large-scale, rapid responses.
The firefighters guided us on what truly matters in the field: reliability, usability and speed. They emphasised the human challenges of wildfire response: long shifts under extreme heat, difficult terrain, with a constant risk to their as well as other people’s lives.
Eradication is not always the answer
By offering firefighters an aerial support team that can scout, map and even deploy extinguishing material autonomously, Aura aims to extend their reach and safety rather than replace their expertise.
The fire practitioners we work with, in the UK and other countries such as Greece and Canada, often remind us their goal is not to eradicate every wildfire. Fire is a natural and necessary element of many ecosystems, so the challenge lies in managing it, preventing small fires from becoming catastrophic ones while allowing controlled burns that sustain biodiversity.
Our swarming drones system supports that balance by acting as an intelligent tool to help firefighters and land managers make faster, more informed decisions. Our vision is to see drones not only fighting fires but also assisting in disaster logistics: delivering supplies, monitoring hotspots, and supporting crews in the field.
A BBC news report on Lancashire Fire Service’s trial of Windracers’ drones, August 2024.
Despite the rapid pace of innovation, however, drone regulation still lags behind technology. In most countries, operating drones “beyond visual line of sight” (BVLOS) requires special authorisation. Dropping payloads of even small amounts of water on a wildfire also involves lengthy safety assessments. These restrictions make testing swarm systems such as Aura challenging.
But progress is on the horizon. Regulators are beginning to approve limited BVLOS operations for certified operators in the US, Australia, Canada and the UK. But a more flexible, data-driven approval process, one that builds cumulative safety cases from successful missions, could unlock greater potential for autonomous systems like ours.
We still have a long way to go to make these technologies a reality, but the ambition that drives me is the one that began when those flames threatened my childhood home. To protect lives and landscapes from preventable loss, while enabling people to live in balance with nature.
This article was commissioned in conjunction with Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025.
This article was commissioned in conjunction with Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025.
Georgios Tzoumas has received funding from Innovate UK, including the Future Flight challenges.
We were standing by a large white board in one of the prison’s educational areas, debriefing how our study on hope had gone when the man slipped into the room without a sound. Like the other participants he was over 60, and serving a life sentence. He had grey hair, and was very tall and slim.
He slowly picked up a chair before slamming it down. I invited him to join us, but he stayed still while the others watched. Then he dragged the chair across the floor with a piercing scrape. I could hear my own pulse.
As I began to speak I noticed he was crying. At first, it sounded like a whisper of sobs, but then it got louder. He rose abruptly, and came up close to me. I wrote in my fieldwork notes from that day:
My heart is racing. He asks, towering over me: ‘How dare you ask us about hope.’ The alarm blares. Guards escort him out. The others sit in stunned silence, eyes locked on us, waiting for a reaction.
In the months that followed, I would meet many other men for whom hope was not necessarily a lifeline as is so commonly assumed, but a burden that they had to carry, sometimes painfully.
The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.
Hope is not a soft word in prison. It shapes how people cope with their sentence and it determines whether – and how – they engage with staff and other prisoners. It shapes whether they commit to vocational and educational activities, and it sustains connections with people on the outside.
For older life-sentenced prisoners specifically, hope becomes interlinked with accelerated ageing, with bullying from younger prisoners, and with the fear of release into an unknown world.
My project (In search of Hope: the case of elderly life-sentenced prisoners) began in August 2022. We were investigating how the “right to hope” – as defined by Judge Ann Power-Forde in her concurring opinion to the European Court of Human Rights judgment Vinter and others v the UK (2013)– translates behind prison walls for older people serving life sentences, many of whom face slim prospects of release due to their advanced age and the length of their prison sentence.
The research was carried out across three English prisons over 12 months by myself and research associate, Helen Gair, with a small team of research assistants. We conducted fieldwork in a Category A prison (reserved for people presenting the highest levels of risk), a Category C (mid-security level prison, often aimed at training and resettlement), and a Category D (open prison or the last stage before release).
Each facility had its own smell and sound. The spatial layout and daily rhythm varied too. For instance, the high security site was an old red brick Victorian building, and the wings were arranged in a half panopticon (circular) design. Outside the main block, guard dogs were walked on a strip of green that ran along a ten-metre-high wall. Inside it was loud; lockdowns were frequent, and it smelled of sweat and mould.
In the open prison, the smell of cannabis drifted through the grounds. Men greeted us in grey tracksuits, often carrying disposable cups of tea. There were ducks and a pond and a RAF plane on display.
In the Category C prison, we often got lost. The alphabetical alignment of buildings made little sense to us. We had our own set of keys which meant we could move around independently. However, rusty locks slowed us down often, and every gate and door had to be opened and closed behind us.
Men aged 50 and above and serving life sentences were invited to participate. We collected diaries, completed ethnographic prison observations, and ran one-to-one interviews with each participant.
Additionally, interviews were conducted with prison staff, both working in frontline and office-based roles, to get a sense of how those who work closest to ageing life-sentenced prisoners perceived hope and whether prison practices preserved or restrained it. Overall, we wanted to find out how hope was experienced by prisoners and how it was handled as a prison practice.
Idealised hope v prison reality
In the 2010s, a case was brought before the European Court of Human Rights by Jeremy Bamber, Douglas Vinter and Peter Moor. They had each been convicted of murder in the UK and been given whole-life orders – the most severe form of life sentence.
This means that by law, they were sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison with no minimum term set for parole or release. Only a small percentage of people get such severe sentences: Myra Hindley and the Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe being two examples.
On July 9, 2013, the human rights court ruled that whole-life orders which do not include any prospect of release or review would amount to inhuman or degrading treatment, contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The notion of a “right to hope” was first mentioned by Judge Ann Power-Forde’s concurring judgment:
… Even those who commit the most abhorrent and egregious of acts … nevertheless retain their essential humanity and carry within themselves the capacity to change. Long and deserved though their prison sentences may be, they retain the right to hope that, someday, they may have atoned for the wrongs which they have committed. They ought not to be deprived entirely of such hope. To deny them the experience of hope would be to deny a fundamental aspect of their humanity and to do that would be degrading.
The right to hope is thus vested in a possibility of release and review. What this means is that there must be a realistic possibility that any prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment be considered, at some point in time, for release or that the justification for their continued detention needs to be reviewed.
But how does the right to hope account for the fact of ageing in prison?
The rapid and global “greying” of the prison population indeed complicates the human rights jurisprudencial understanding of a right to hope. As of March 2025, there were 87,919 people in prison in England and Wales, with nearly one in five (18%) aged 50 or older, according to the Ministry of Justice.
Compounding matters, life-sentenced prisoners now make up around 10% of the sentenced population, and this group is ageing rapidly. Almost a third of “lifers” are over 50. As a result, old, life-sentenced prisoners are the fastest-growing subgroup in the system.
This phenomenon combined with the current overcrowding crisis produces a range of managerial and ethical challenges: bed spaces are tied up for decades, healthcare and social care demands are on a steep rise, and the pressures on ill-equipped prison staff increase.
The myth of prison release
One important finding from our project is that parole and the possibility of release during a prisoner’s life span becomes somewhat of a myth for those serving life sentences at an advanced age. Usually, life-sentenced prisoners are given a minimum tariff, which is a period when they are not eligible for parole. This legal principle does not account for age however. Dean, 62 , was a life-sentenced prisoner at the Category A prison who had served six years. He told us how unrealistic parole felt in light of his age:
I will be 80 years old before my first parole hearing and in all honesty I don’t know if I will reach that milestone. Although my health is reasonable, I’m on all kinds of medication to keep me going but incarceration has a way of dragging you down so I am not optimistic.
Trevor was 73 when we interviewed him in the Category C prison and had been inside for 27 years. He was sat in a wheelchair and had an elastic band wrapped around his middle finger and thumb. He explained to us that it helped him hold a pen.
He described years of postponed parole hearings, medical delays, and transfers to lower security prisons being denied because his health needs could not be met in open prison conditions. He asked us simply:
If you were in my situation would you live in hope or would you resign yourself to your future?
The experience of no longer believing in release is supported by official data that shows that few prisoners sentenced to life get released during their lifetime.
One in five lifers are now beyond their tariff, often by several years with age-related barriers to parole contributing to prolonged incarceration. What we noticed during fieldwork was that older prisoners often struggled to access or complete accredited programmes because of mobility issues and cognitive impairment, but also due to managerial prioritisation of younger prisoners or those convicted of shorter sentences.
Rising deaths in England and Wales among older prisoners further underscores the illusory prospect of release.
Nearly nine in ten of the 192 deaths from natural causes in the year 2025 involved older prisoners and the number of people in prison requiring palliative care continues to grow.
From 2016 to 2020, hospitals recorded 190 admissions of older male prisoners with a palliative care diagnosis. In roughly 40% of those cases, cancer was the main condition on entry. The charity, Inquest, reported in 2020 that many of the deaths in prison were neither inevitable nor unforeseeable, pointing instead to systemic failings in healthcare provision, communication, emergency intervention, and medication management.
Building on this, academic scholars Philippa Tomczak and Ròisìn Mulgrew argued that classifying deaths in custody as “natural” obscure the ways in which prison environments contribute to deaths that might otherwise have been avoided.
Additionally, research has repeatedly linked self-harm and suicide patterns to experiences of hopelessness and social isolation. The participants in our study similarly tied the removal of hope to suicides, citing examples they had witnessed in prison.
In his prison diary, a participant with thick rectangular glasses called Ian, 65, who had served 33 years of his life sentence and was now held in a Category C prison, wrote:
With the absent (sic) of hope you have despair. I have known prisoners who have committed suicide, they had no hope or expectations only misery and despair.
So there appears to be a contradiction between the legal possibility of release and its practical improbability in the context of old and ageing, life-sentenced prisoners.
The fear of release
Beyond the practical improbability of release, many participants described how much they feared the world they would hypothetically re-enter one day. Several participants in their 60s and 70s reflected on how they no longer recognised the world outside.
For them, the time spent in prison combined with their physical and cognitive decline has institutionalised them. They felt they could not fare alone outside prison rules and environments. One man named Roy, who had spent decades in various Category A prisons wrote in his diary:
I have no hope of, or real wish to leave prison, where I am now completely institutionalised, I have no responsibilities other than abiding by prison rules, and few expenses.
Another frail-looking man named Russell, 68, described in his diary (which he completed from his Category C cell) how the very idea of a future had become hollow: “It’s difficult really because like I say, I haven’t got any hope of getting out of prison as far as I’m concerned. That is it. I’m in prison and that’s as far as it will go.”
Practical matters such as technological advances and housing also made the very thought of release overwhelming. Gary, 63, who had served 24 years, wrote poignantly about his fears of release, saying: “Release frightens me because of the label that has been firmly given to me and that brings its own problems. Where will I live? How will I live?”
A 73-year-old participant named Kevin, who was transferred during the project from a Category C to an open prison, spoke about how, after 21 years in prison, things will have changed too much on the outside for him to deal with. As he stood on the doorstep of freedom, he worried about getting his head around new technology and accessing simple things like his pension. He said: “Technology has moved on at a phenomenal pace, seems very scary to me … I should stay here in prison where everything is regulated and structured rather than going out to something that is quite alien to me.”
These feelings are exacerbated by the erosion of social networks, the death of family and friends, and the disappearance of any meaningful horizon. Social isolation means that the world they would be reintegrating into has become alien and they will have to navigate it mostly alone. Kevin added:
People that I used to call friends no longer want to know me or have died. One thing for sure that I can [say] is true, you certainly find out who your true friends are … when you come to prison and especially if you come to prison for a long time.
This sense of destroyed horizons, where release holds no promise and the outside world has become even more terrifying than the cell, has been dramatised in popular culture.
In The Shawshank Redemption (1994) the character Brooks, released after 50 years inside, finds himself unable to cope with the pace and impersonality of the modern world. His suicide becomes a haunting metaphor for the crushing effect of institutionalisation that hollows out the self and the possibility of meaningful social reintegration.
When hoping becomes harmful
Other prisoners we spoke to seemingly decided it was more beneficial for them to give up on hope altogether. Some – like Barry -– wondered if giving up on hope of release would be less torturous.
Barry was 65 when we spoke to him and has spent over four decades in prison on a life sentence. He’s tall and slim. When he walked in, we noticed he had a limp and used a cane. The first time we met, he sat with his hands clasped, speaking in a measured voice that occasionally broke into a laugh, not from humour but more from what I felt like was exhaustion. Though parole is technically available to him, he has come to see the pursuit of release not as hopeful but as harmful.
Over years of disappointments, Barry wondered if living with no hope would be less painful and felt it had become “pointless” to hope. He wrote in his diary:
Hope is when I want something to happen or something to be true … I often ask myself would it be kinder to live with no hope and just live with a ‘wait and see’ kind of attitude.
Indeed, every parole hearing postponed, every dashed expectation had eroded the value of hoping. Ultimately, giving up on hope is captured as something that eventually preserves mental health. As Barry added:
An empty case of hope is healthy, I say that because of the amount of men I have seen become ill; disappointment becomes despair, becomes depression, becomes mental ill health … then when you stop hoping, you start to recover and you no longer feel hopeless, as you are not hoping for anything. So hope is a paradox, it can disappoint or make you feel there is a real possibility of things to come.
He recalled reading about an American woman sentenced to life without parole who had begged for the death penalty instead. Her explanation (“I don’t just want to be alive, I want to be able to live”) resonated with him so powerfully that he said it, “almost knocked me off my chair”. He recognised in her plea the same cruel paradox he faced: that to prolong his existence in hopeless conditions was no life at all. His conclusion was irrevocable:
I understand more than most the need for hope, but all the years that I have been in prison and all the hopes I have had destroyed, I see hope as an enemy.
But then Barry equally admitted that he still hoped, no matter what. His hope was like a human natural reflex, over which he had no control, it just happened. He said: “We all hope … I hope I’ll get out on my next parole.”
What then, is hope in prison? Is it cruel and torturous or is it a human feature that brings relief and drive?
Recalibrating hope
We found hope meant different things to different people. It is not just about release. Some needed detailed plans, others focused on the day to day. Sometimes hope shifted towards modest goals that are tied to imagined places outside prison: a quiet retirement, a chance to study, to garden.
Terry was 65 and had served 38 years in category A prison. He told us that all he hoped for was “a quiet life in retirement”, while Russell, who was about the same age but had served over 12 years and was in a Category C when he wrote his diary, said that he hoped to, “… someday be released and to live the remaining years I have left in a small bungalow with a small garden in a village miles away from my old area of England. Have a pet cat.”
Others cast their hopes in more detailed and concrete plans about what the future would look like. Carl, 60, who enjoyed cooking and working out, for example, said he hoped to move in with his daughter and grandchildren for a while in an area where his ambition is to build his own house. He added: “I designed and roughly costed the development plan that helped to reinforce the hope that these plans were achievable.”
In the moment
But other participants recalibrated hope to more immediate aspirations set in the present, and in day-to-day encounters.
Barry said: “My hope is that I continue to live in the moment … You know, cause right now I’m in this office with you two guys, it’s calm. It’s nice. It’s peaceful. It’s a nice moment. But I’m not gonna think about what it’s gonna be like at 4pm because I might walk out that door and straight into a prison riot.”
Russell agreed, adding: “Looking for the future, I just go from one day to the next. It’s no good planning too far ahead.”
This shift of hope raises questions about how prisons shape and even limit the ways people can access and imagine their futures.
Another participant, Craig, who was 66 and had only served just over five years in the Category A prison when we met him wrote: “… you personalise hope to suit the circumstances.”
For the institution and those working in prison, these attitudes towards hope could be perceived as successful because prisoners sentenced to the longest sentences demonstrated a commitment to live a crime-free life, set in the present moment, focused on small menial things that will not raise any risk for management.
But when hope becomes so short-termist and bland, we are able to capture a shift in the very logic of imprisonment – one which is less about nourishing transformation aimed at resocialisation, and more about the life-long containment of decaying and dying bodies.
Hope matters
This article opened with a man telling my colleagues and I: “How dare you ask us about hope?” That moment has echoed throughout this study, both as an outburst that shows how prison research can be fraught with complexity but can also propel further and deeper reflection on humanitarian ideals such as hope.
When people in prison speak of the cruelty and fallacy of hope, you begin to wonder how much beauty and promise hope really holds in spaces of high control and constraint.
When transposed to prisons, hope no longer seems to be attached to an open horizon, evocative of lightness and liberty found anew. Instead, it represents dissociation from the outside world, and the cause of frustration, mistrust and a sense of abandonment.
Hope in prison exposes a disconnect between abstract legal humanitarian ideals and the empirical realities of ageing while incarcerated for long periods of time. And this claim could probably be extended to other settings of heightened regulation and tight monitoring, such as care homes, immigration detention centres, or even youth justice facilities.
The decision to depart from hope’s conventional, perhaps slightly romanticised meaning, and to recalibrate it towards real, daily conditions could nonetheless illustrate new ways for how older life-sentenced prisoners (and others under constraint) regain agency and keep going.
Ultimately, hope matters – not only for the people I met and interviewed – but also for broader society.
Imprisonment marked by hopelessness is linked to deteriorating mental and physical health, increasing pressure on prison healthcare and, upon release, on community health and social care services.
This is exacerbated for older prisoners released after decades inside. Hope is not a sentimental indulgence, but a condition that shapes whether imprisonment prepares people to live safely beyond prison or releases them with profound unmet needs. Regimes that erode hope risk merely displacing, rather than resolving, social harm.
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Marion Vannier receives funding from the UK Research and Innovation Future Leader Fellowship.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Catherine Wynne, Associate Dean for Research and Enterprise, Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Education, University of Hull
It is 1925 and the scene is Chimneys. It’s the English stately pile of the Caterham family, but the penurious Lady Caterham (Helena Bonham Carter), has been forced to rent it to the industrial magnate Sir Oswald Coote (Mark Lewis Jones).
Inside the house, a party is in full swing and the misanthropic Lady Caterham, a visitor in her own house, observes to her daughter, Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent (Mia McKenna Bruce), that the guests are “industry, aristocracy, and the foreign office”.
Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery, published in 1929, is now a lavish three-part Netflix series written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Chris Sweeney. This new adaptation uses Christie’s puzzle of the seven dials not just to entertain, but to confront the political and imperial world her novels often leave implicit.
During the party, the young men of the foreign office play a prank on their colleague by setting eight alarm clocks in his room timed to go off at 11.15am the next morning. Why? Because their colleague famously sleeps late.
When one of the clocks goes missing, later found by Bundle on the lawn, and the other seven are arranged neatly on the bedroom’s mantelpiece, Bundle is perplexed. And there’s a death – naturally.
Despite the suggestion that the victim was under stress in his work (a contemporary reference to the rapid rise in mental health issues in young men), Bundle rejects the verdict that he took his own life. Her certainty is compounded when she later comes upon another young male victim, whose final words are “seven dials”. But what is he really referring to? Bundle intends to find out.
The trailer for Seven Dials.
Trailed by a figure unknown to her, her pursuit of her shadow leads her to Scotland Yard and to Inspector Battle (Martin Freeman, no stranger to sleuthing having played Watson in the BBC Sherlock Holmes series). Bundle mirrors Irene Adler from Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia (1891). In the story, Adler follows a disguised Holmes to Baker Street and becomes the only person ever to outwit the detective.
Like Adler before her, the intrepid Bundle is a feminist trailblazer. McKenna Bruce is superb, occupying the role with aplomb. In Christie’s novel Bundle cannot sit still. In the series she jumps out of an upper-storey window in Chimneys to avoid a proposal of marriage from a boring and older MP, George Lomax (Alex Macqueen), landing in the garden where Kettle is investigating the evidence. She has made her choice.
What Netflix adds to Christie’s original
The Netflix series is a more straightforward thriller than Christie’s novel. In the introduction to the 2026 signature edition of the novel, which comes with new cover art and design from Netflix, Val McDermid posits that Christie operates on the terrain of thriller pastiche, sending up the masculine John Buchan-type thrillers of the 1910s and 1920s. She is also Jane Austen-like with her ironic take on the aristocracy, the nouveaux riche and purposeless young men and women.
The series echoes Christie’s critique of the rigid social structures of the 1920s. Bonham Carter’s Lady Caterham observes that Lady Coote should not thank servants, Sir Oswald Coote declares that he can buy class. But it does more too: Christie avoided references to the first world war, writing in the decade after its ending. During the war, she worked dispensing medicines for the Voluntary Aid Detachment of the British Red Cross in Torquay (where she learned all about poison). By contrast war is embedded into the Netflix series.
Bundle has lost her brother in the conflict and her connection to the young foreign office men is a comradeship made through war. They are survivors of a sort. Life, Bundle says, is “far too short”. Her late brother Tommy served with the foreign office’s Gerry Wade (Corey Mylchreest), who recovered his body.
In the series’ climax, Lady Caterham, powerfully articulated by Bonham Carter, describes the war as an “abattoir” with no “glory”. She lives, Miss Havisham-like, in a house where a bucket catches the drops of water from a leaky roof and the footman doesn’t get paid. As Bundle discovers (in line with the thriller genre) no one is what they seem to be.
But the most chilling indictment of European empires and the social structures they support is articulated by Dr Cyril Matip (Nyasha Hatendi), a brilliant Cameroonian inventor whom Lomax tries to get to work for Britain by inviting him to his country pile.
When Lomax puts on a pheasant shoot to entertain Matip, the inventor refuses to participate – he has seen what guns can do. Meanwhile, Bundle’s eyes rest on a shot pheasant in the grass. At dinner, Matip describes the impact of war and his distrust of Europeans. He has seen how “Africans have fought other Africans for white Europeans”.
In homage to Christie’s most famous work, Murder on the Orient Express, the climax occurs on a train. But not all is over. The final secret – that of the seven dials – is still to be revealed. Seven Dials refreshes Christie for our times, and it does it admirably. Christie still has much to say. We underestimate her at our peril.
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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.
Catherine Wynne 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.
“When a child has a fever, crush a ‘candlenut’ (fiyaai [Aleurites moluccanus]). Add water to the mixture, and apply it to the child’s body. The fever will go down.”
Indigenous Indonesian communities — like the Papuan Abui people of Alor — are the custodians of very ancient knowledge. Their traditional healing practices rely on the masterful use of medicinal plants.
Through years of fieldwork and research, we have documented how the names of local healing plants, their properties, and the related treatments are integrated into everyday conversation and practice among Indigenous communities. These names even shape local human geography (toponyms) and the plots of legends and folktales.
In short, those plant names are more than just vocabulary items in endangered or undocumented languages. They provide us with leads to a treasure trove of medical knowledge, cultural history, and unrecorded oral traditions.
Collecting the names, understanding the culture
Our studies on local phytonyms and medicinal plants represent an interdisciplinary effort originating from language documentation. We combine ethnobotany with field linguistics to document mainly Papuan Indigenous contexts from Southeast Indonesia (Alor-Pantar Archipelago) — including Abui, Kape, Papuna, Kamang, Kabola, Kula, and Sawila.
Collecting and analysing plant samples and their names involves working closely with Indigenous speakers — through direct and systematic interviews — as well as fieldwork and the development of an ongoing database. To ensure taxonomic accuracy, we verify every identification with botanists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
For every plant, we record more than just its scientific classification and specimen data. We document its local name, English translation, and cultural roots — uncovering the oral traditions, ancestral medical practices, and unwritten histories attached to each species.
This interdisciplinary work proves that medicinal properties, undocumented stories and myths, and ancestral beliefs are deeply and intricately interwoven.
Intertwined practices and heritage
Beyond their medicinal use, plants and fungi are woven into the cultural beliefs and traditions of the Abui people. They shape a complex system of Indigenous knowledge.
Take the ruui haweei, or ‘rat’s ears’ mushroom (Auricularia polytricha). Pregnant women eat this in the hope that their children will be born with beautiful ears.
Then there is the naai or ‘pigeon pea’ (Cajanus cajan). This plant is used to treat diseases in children believed to be caused by their father’s adultery.
In this ritual, healers serve cooked pea porridge to the mother. The number of seeds left behind in the pot is said to reveal the number of women the husband has slept with. According to local belief, this revelation heals the sick child.
Plants also play a role in conflict resolution. During tribal wars, the luul meeting or ‘long pepper’ (Piper retrofractum) was used to symbolically cleanse the ‘warm blood’ spilled in battle. By eating the roots or nuts, villagers purified the bloodshed, allowing them to share meals again and chew betel nuts in peace.
Finally, the bayooqa tree (Pterospermum diversifolium) bridges the gap between medicine and the spirit world. While its leaves treat wounds and dysentery, its wood is sacred. It was traditionally used to build worship platforms for the ancient god ‘Lamòling’.
Locals used these platforms in a ritual called bayooqa liik hasuonra (‘pushing down the platform’), performed forty days after a burial. Family members shared a ritual meal on a wooden slab before cutting down the posts and flipping the platform over — a final farewell to their relative.
Our findings show that healing plants are not only central to the daily medicinal needs of Indigenous Papuan communities, but are also part of a deep-rooted cultural heritage. This knowledge shapes their local identity and guides them through every stage of life — from birth to death.
Francesco Perono Cacciafoco received funding from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU): Research Development Fund (RDF) Grant, “Place Names and Cultural Identity: Toponyms and Their Diachronic Evolution among the Kula People from Alor Island”, Grant Number: RDF-23-01-014, School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), Suzhou (Jiangsu), China, 2024-2025.
Source: The Conversation – France (in French) – By Camille Dormoy, Docteure en sociologie, spécialiste des politiques publiques de gestion des déchets/économie circulaire, Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV)
Pour réduire les déchets, les politiques publiques misent de plus en plus sur les sciences comportementales, comme les « nudges » (dispositifs de suggestion). Cette idée est séduisante, mais elle déplace la responsabilité d’un problème systémique vers les individus. Les défauts de tris et autres dépôts sauvages sont alors souvent requalifiés comme de « mauvais comportements ». Le problème de cette approche ? Elle invisibilise les déterminants matériels, sociaux et politiques de la production des déchets.
Depuis une dizaine d’années, les collectivités territoriales, les agences nationales et une partie du secteur privé se sont engouffrées dans une voie présentée comme prometteuse : l’application des sciences comportementales à la réduction des déchets.
L’idée est que si les individus trient mal, jettent au mauvais endroit ou produisent trop de déchets, c’est qu’ils manquent d’information, de motivation ou parce que les dispositifs censés orienter leurs gestes (emplacement des bacs, lisibilité des consignes…) n’envoient pas les « bons signaux ». Des campagnes fondées sur les « nudges », des dispositifs incitatifs ou des signalétiques présentées comme « engageantes », sont alors présentées comme suffisantes pour transformer les comportements ordinaires et les pratiques quotidiennes.
Ce récit séduit. En effet, il permet d’agir vite, à moindre coût, et sans remettre en cause les logiques structurelles qui génèrent les déchets. Mais cette vision est réductrice. Elle repose sur une vision des conduites humaines qui méconnaît profondément les rapports sociaux, les conditions d’habiter, les trajectoires résidentielles, les inégalités matérielles et symboliques.
Surtout, elle déplace la question politique des déchets à l’échelle des individus. Ce faisant, elle en assigne la responsabilité aux habitants, présentés comme des acteurs indisciplinés mais rationalisables à coups de micro-incitations.
Dispositifs défaillants et production institutionnelle de la stigmatisation
Sur le terrain, les observations ethnographiques montrent un paysage différent. Il est davantage structuré par des dispositifs sociotechniques, économiques, organisationnels que par les intentions individuelles.
Dans de nombreux quartiers, le tri est entravé par des infrastructures inadaptées. Citons par exemple les vide-ordures encore en usage qui empêchent toute séparation des flux à la source, l’absence d’espaces de stockage dans les logements, les bacs trop éloignés ou difficilement accessibles… certains dispositifs semblent conçus sans avoir tenu compte des pratiques quotidiennes de circulation des habitants. On peut ainsi penser aux points d’apport volontaire dispersés sur plusieurs centaines de mètres, qui imposent de longs trajets pour trier le verre, le papier et les plastiques.
Ces contraintes matérielles façonnent les gestes quotidiens, bien davantage qu’un prétendu manque de volonté ou de sensibilisation. S’y ajoute un autre phénomène, particulièrement saillant dans les quartiers populaires : des pratiques de circulation d’objets – don, récupération, redistribution informelle – se trouvent placées sous un régime de suspicions et de sanctions.
Autrement dit, ce qui relevait auparavant d’une économie populaire du réemploi est désormais requalifié en dépôts sauvages et incivilités. Et cela non pas parce que les pratiques auraient nécessairement changé, mais parce que leur visibilité est perçue comme un problème par les institutions.
Cette requalification transforme des logiques de subsistance ou de solidarité en manquements à la norme. Dans ce cadre, les acteurs institutionnels chargés de la gestion des déchets valorisent avant tout une logique de salubrité publique. Leur action se concentre alors sur l’évacuation, la disparition rapide des traces, l’entretien visuel de la voie publique. Le déchet y est traité comme un rebut dont il faut se débarrasser, et non comme une ressource susceptible d’être valorisée. Ainsi, des objets laissés temporairement dans l’espace public dans l’attente d’un repreneur ou d’un réemploi sont ramassés par les camions de collecte. Et ce faisant, définitivement soustraits à toute possibilité de réutilisation, parfois réduits à l’état de déchets ultimes par le broyage.
Ce glissement est lourd d’effets. Dans ces quartiers, les déchets deviennent des marqueurs sociaux. Ils servent à requalifier des groupes, à leur attribuer des comportements naturalisés, à désigner des « responsabilités » qui coïncident souvent avec des stigmatisations ethno-sociales préexistantes.
La propreté devient alors un instrument de classement. La figure de l’« habitant défaillant » se substitue aux défaillances structurelles des dispositifs sociotechniques, économiques et organisationnels. Rebut d’un côté, ressources de l’autre : la distinction n’est pas seulement technique, elle est sociale et politique. Elle organise la manière dont les territoires sont perçus, traités et hiérarchisés.
Les sciences comportementales masquent les vrais enjeux
Dans ce contexte, le recours aux sciences comportementales agit comme un masque. Il détourne l’attention des problèmes très concrets qui structurent la gestion des déchets au quotidien :
infrastructures défaillantes ou mal pensées (vide-ordures qui encouragent à jeter sans trier, locaux poubelles saturés, équipements peu lisibles),
conditions de travail éprouvantes (gardiens inexistants ou cantonnés à « tenir » les parties communes sans moyens ni formation sur le tri, prestataires de nettoiement soumis à des règles strictes et à des cadences élevées),
et des conflits permanents entre acteurs (bailleur, métropole, prestataires, habitants).
Au lieu de rendre ces dysfonctionnements visibles, l’analyse se concentre sur le dernier maillon de la chaîne : l’habitant, présenté comme celui qui se trompe, résiste ou ne fait pas assez d’efforts. C’est pourtant l’organisation du système qui crée les conditions mêmes de ces « mauvais gestes ».
Les éboueurs, les agents de tri, les services techniques et les décisions politiques disparaissent derrière une théorie simplifiée des comportements, où l’individu devient un point d’application dépolitisé. Pour les instituions, cette approche est séduisante à plusieurs titres :
ensuite, parce qu’elle évite d’avoir à ouvrir le dossier – plus coûteux et plus conflictuel – de la réduction à la source, de la régulation de la production, ou de la reconfiguration des infrastructures (transformation matérielle et organisationnelle des dispositifs existants). Cela impliquerait ainsi de remettre en cause des équipements qui orientent structurellement les pratiques vers l’évacuation plutôt que vers la valorisation. Ou encore de redéfinir le rôle des acteurs de terrain – gardiens, agents de propreté, prestataires –, aujourd’hui cantonnés à une gestion de la salubrité visible ;
enfin, elle s’accorde avec une conception néolibérale de l’action publique où chacun est sommé d’être responsable de son empreinte.
Pourtant, cette logique se heurte à deux limites majeures.
La première tient aux résultats eux-mêmes de ces interventions comportementales. D’abord, leurs effets sont difficiles à mesurer. Elles peuvent également se révéler peu durables, puisque fortement dépendante des configurations sociales et matérielles dans lesquelles elles sont déployées. Enfin, elles peuvent modifier les comportements à court terme, mais ces ajustements se défont rapidement lorsque les incitations cessent, tant que l’organisation concrète reste inchangée. En pratique, les effets observés dans des cadres expérimentaux se révèlent difficiles à transposer durablement dans les contextes ordinaires.
La seconde limite est politique. En recentrant l’attention sur les comportements individuels, ces interventions contribuent à déplacer la responsabilité vers ceux qui disposent de la marge de manœuvre la plus étroite. Les habitants les plus précaires deviennent les premiers visés par ces dispositifs correctifs, alors même qu’ils subissent des infrastructures défaillantes et des conditions d’habiter plus contraignantes que d’autres.
Pendant ce temps, les ressorts structurels de la production de déchets demeurent intouchés. L’action publique se focalise ainsi sur ceux qui ont le moins de pouvoir d’action et épargne ceux qui déterminent réellement les volumes et les flux.
Sortir de la vision psychologisante de la gestion des déchets
En finir avec les sciences comportementales appliquées à la gestion des déchets ne signifie pas rejeter toute forme d’attention aux pratiques quotidiennes et individuelles. Cela implique plutôt de déplacer son centre de gravité. Pour cela, il convient de sortir d’une vision psychologisante, de réintroduire les dimensions matérielles, institutionnelles, historiques, politiques et sociales, et enfin de reconnaître que les déchets ne sont pas seulement une affaire d’individus mais aussi de systèmes.
Les infrastructures, les logiques économiques de production, la division sociale du travail, les politiques urbaines et les rapports de pouvoir façonnent bien davantage les volumes, les flux et les gestes que ne le feront jamais les autocollants sur un bac jaune.
Si les sciences comportementales ont pu offrir quelques outils ponctuels, elles ne constituent ni une théorie sociale ni une politique publique durable. La gestion des déchets exige une compréhension plus exigeante, celle d’un monde où la matérialité, les normes, la stigmatisation, les inégalités et les infrastructures s’entremêlent. S’y dérober en réduisant sa complexité à des micro-incitations n’est pas seulement inefficace, c’est aussi renoncer à penser ce que les déchets révèlent réellement de nos sociétés.
Camille Dormoy 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.
Face à l’urgence écologique, l’inaction est souvent justifiée par nos biais cognitifs individuels. Mais cette lecture psychologisante occulte l’essentiel. Des causes politiques, économiques et sociales sont à l’œuvre dans l’effondrement du vivant actuel. On le verra à travers l’exemple des océans et des milieux marins.
Face à l’urgence climatique, pourquoi sait-on mais n’agit-on pas ? Telle est la question posée par l’activiste Camille Étienne dans son documentaire Pourquoi on se bat ? (2022). Parmi ses invités figure Sébastien Bohler, journaliste et chroniqueur, notamment connu pour son essai le Bug humain (2019). Dans l’ouvrage, il explique que notre cerveau privilégierait le court terme au détriment de la planète. Il en conclut qu’il faut rééduquer notre cerveau pour déclencher l’action collective.
Ce discours, qui attribue l’inaction écologique à des biais cognitifs, c’est-à-dire à des mécanismes automatiques du cerveau, est repris par de nombreuses communications grand public. Sa simplicité est séduisante, mais il pose plusieurs problèmes. En effet, il ne dit rien des écarts considérables de comportements que l’on peut observer entre individus ou sociétés, il occulte les facteurs politiques, économiques et culturels et surtout il offre un alibi aux industries qui ont tout intérêt à maintenir l’exploitation intensive de la nature.
Cette explication est attrayante, mais ne permet pas de comprendre ce qui organise l’inaction ni d’y apporter des solutions concrètes et efficaces. Le cas du milieu marin illustre particulièrement cette logique : la gouvernance de l’océan est particulièrement délicate dans un contexte où prédomine l’exploitation économique, alors que les problèmes qui en découlent (catastrophes environnementales, destruction des moyens de subsistance de celles et ceux qui en dépendent ailleurs dans le monde…) sont souvent invisibilisés.
Cette découverte est relativement récente. En effet, la recherche océanographique s’est développée plus tardivement que ses équivalents terrestres, du fait, entre autres raisons, des difficultés d’accès du milieu marin. Ce retard explique en partie pourquoi la prise de conscience environnementale liée à la mer a été plus tardive que celle concernant les forêts ou les terres agricoles, par exemple.
Surtout, l’océan est un milieu qui nous est étranger : la dégradation des fonds, la raréfaction des espèces ou l’acidification des eaux se produisent hors de nos champs sensoriels.
Ce contexte est particulièrement propice à l’émergence de biais cognitifs pour expliquer leur effondrement écologique.
Des biais réels mais surestimés
Depuis les années 1980, la recherche sur le sujet a montré qu’il existait à la fois des biais psychologiques et des remèdes à ces derniers. Pour n’en citer que quelques-uns : biais d’optimisme, de présentisme (c’est-à-dire, notre tendance à préférer les résultats immédiats au détriment des résultats futurs) ou encore distance psychologique.
Appliqués à l’écologie, ils se traduisent par une minimisation des risques environnementaux, qui sont alors perçus comme lointains, temporaires ou réversibles. De ces constats naît l’idée que l’inaction environnementale serait préprogrammée dans notre cerveau de façon universelle et que les solutions devraient viser cette partie rétive de nos psychologies.
Autre exemple : le phénomène de « shifting baseline » (aussi appelé amnésie environnementale), qui décrit la tendance pour chaque nouvelle génération à réévaluer comme « normal » un état de plus en plus dégradé de la nature. Pour le milieu marin, les professionnels prennent alors pour référence des niveaux de biodiversité déjà appauvris. Chaque nouvelle étape de dégradation des écosystèmes est ainsi intégrée comme un nouvel état stable, ce qui rend la perte globale plus difficile à voir.
Souvent mobilisés pour expliquer les comportements humains, ces biais peinent pourtant à décrire toute la réalité. Raisonnons par l’absurde : s’il existe des biais universels qui nous poussent à minimiser les enjeux environnementaux, voire à détruire l’environnement, comment expliquer les écarts parfois importants en termes de croyances et de comportements que l’on peut observer d’une personne à l’autre, d’une société à l’autre ?
L’effondrement écologique ne peut se comprendre sans faire l’analyse des sociétés qui y contribuent et qui exacerbent nos biais individuels. Dans nos sociétés industrialisées, l’accroissement du capital structure à la fois nos environnements sociaux et nos motivations. Or, l’avènement des sociétés capitalistes n’a pas été le résultat de seuls biais cognitifs ou de processus biologiques universels : il a été mené par une petite fraction de l’humanité qui, avec les moyens matériels et politiques adéquats, a pu l’imposer à la majorité, entraînant la rupture des rapports sociaux et environnementaux préexistants.
Dans les milieux marins, l’effondrement écologique s’explique surtout par les conditions économiques et politiques qui le rendent possible à l’échelle globale : pêche industrielle peu régulée, marchandisation de la biodiversité marine (tourisme, aquaculture…), intérêts économiques et politiques liés au contrôle de l’extraction minière et énergétique (hydrocarbures offshore, minerais marins)… Le tout inscrit dans un système économique global fondé sur l’accumulation.
Tout cela montre que l’effondrement écologique actuel est davantage la conséquence d’arrangements sociopolitiques que de biais cognitifs individuels qui nous pousseraient naturellement à détruire les écosystèmes. Il nous faut sortir de cette vision et agir sur les causes systémiques qui produisent l’inaction.
En effet, nous pouvons agir sur les organes politiques et économiques qui encadrent la gestion des milieux naturels, dont les milieux marins. Or, c’est précisément ce que les discours majoritaires sur les biais psychologiques empêchent de faire. En légitimant l’idée selon laquelle ces biais universels – car inscrits dans notre biologie – seraient à l’origine des problèmes d’exploitation, ils invisibilisent les rapports de pouvoir, déresponsabilisent les politiques et fournissent des outils permettant ensuite de justifier l’inaction.
Que faire ? Individuellement, il est bien sûr possible d’agir sur sa consommation de produits issus de la surpêche et de l’exploitation animale, de limiter les déplacements polluants ou encore de rejoindre des collectifs afin de gagner en capacité d’action et d’information.
Quels arguments pour convaincre et engager à l’action ? La recherche en psychologie et en communication environnementale a identifié six « vérités clés » :
le changement climatique existe,
il est créé par nos sociétés industrielles,
il existe un consensus scientifique,
il a des conséquences graves sur l’humanité et la biodiversité,
la majorité des personnes en sont inquiètes et veulent agir,
enfin, des actions efficaces existent.
L’action collective doit ensuite œuvrer à tous les niveaux, du local à l’international, en gardant pour boussole :
le respect des droits et de la dignité des populations,
une gouvernance la plus égalitaire et démocratique possible,
et la mise en place de mesures efficaces, contrôlées et collaboratives de gestion des biens communs, tels que des aires marines protégées exigeantes.
L’effondrement du climat et de la biodiversité ne sont donc pas des fatalités, mais les conséquences des systèmes sur lesquels nous pouvons avoir un impact – à condition de les réorienter vers des modèles plus justes et soutenables.
Pierre-Yves Carpentier est membre de l’association Alternatiba06 qui œuvre pour l’écologie.
Benoit Dérijard a reçu des financements du CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), de l’Université Côte d’Azur, du FEAMPA (Fonds Européen pour les Affaires Maritimes, la Pêche et l’Aquaculture), de la Région Sud et de l’OFB (Office Français de la Biodiversité).
Clara Vincendon 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.
