The environment and cultural heritage are highlights of "Estudos Avançados" #102
Issue #102 of IEA's quarterly publication, the journal Estudos Avançados, is now available (Portuguese only) for free download on the SciELO platform, featuring the dossiers "Energy and Environment," "Hybrids of Knowledge," and "Religious Spaces."
According to the editor, Sérgio Adorno, the multiple facets of the dossier "Energy and Environment" pose strategic questions for sustainable development. "Regardless of the complexity that the relations between energy and environment raise, the dossier addresses problems that have been mobilizing the attention of the scientific community, at least of informed public opinion." Part of the articles deal with case studies, "suggestive of broader trends that are underway in the domain of these relations" between energy and environment, he says.
Air quality
According to the article that opens the dossier, "Analysis of Air Quality Monitoring in Brazil," written by researchers from the Health and Sustainability Institute, IEA, and USP's Medical School (FM), only ten states and the Federal District monitor air quality. This is carried out through 371 active stations, 80% of them in the Southeast Region. Five of these states communicate monitoring data to the population in real time. The authors emphasize that the National Air Quality Network is still incomplete 30 years after its creation, "making it impossible for environmental agencies to adequately manage air quality."
Another article in the dossier, "Green Infrastructure to Monitor and Minimize the Impacts of Atmospheric Pollution," analyzes the role of trees in retaining particulate matter, one of the main air contaminants in cities, on their surface. The work has used samples of tree bark from five parks in the city of São Paulo.
The other five articles in the dossier address water integration on the Brazil-Uruguay border, the potential of the state of Rio Grande do Norte for the production of wind energy and the policies necessary for the production of this energy to be consolidated, the problems in the implementation of the Joint Urban Operation for the Port Region of Rio de Janeiro, the importance of biodiversity in the tropical forests of Africa and South America for the production of medicines, pesticides, and other products, and the approximation of the formulations of the Kaiowa and Guarani peoples of Mato Grosso do Sul to the reflections of political ecology.
Climate Adaptation
The second dossier, "Hybrids of Knowledge," brings together articles by members of IEA's research group Environment and Society and dialogues with the previous dossier by addressing issues such as climate adaptation at the local level (including a comparative study between Brazil and Portugal), and policies for water and water resources governance. The purpose of the dossier is "to promote the integration between different fields of knowledge from the perspectives of co-design, co-production, and co-dissemination," explains Adorno.
The article "Integrating Knowledge to Advance Climate Adaptation at the Local Level," written by researchers of USP, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, and Waikato University, warns that climate adaptation is a particularly urgent challenge for decision makers at the municipal and regional levels, considering the gaps in the development of local responses such as lack of data and political will or resources.
Are climate change adaptation policies, plans, and strategies adequately focused on achieving justice, reducing inequalities, and demanding rights? The issue is discussed in the article "Climate Justice and Adaptation Strategies to Climate Change in Brazil and Portugal." The study analyzes the scientific production on climate justice in both countries and discusses how their adaptation strategies and policies incorporate justice-related components.
The themes of the other three articles in the dossier are the challenges of water governance from the concept of hydrosocial territory, how this governance takes place in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, and the conflicts of water and sanitation policies as well as the universalization of these services as a common.
The approach to the themes of the dossier "focuses on the multiplicity of actors, interests, and disputes, which makes it possible to assess impacts on the aggravation of social inequalities and on the impasses in the guarantees of human rights for the greatest number of citizens," states the editor. In addition, the articles' methodological, systemic, and interactive approaches allow "knowing and evaluating ongoing experiments and innovations, pointing to a more sustainable future adapted to the scarcity of resources in the context of global environmental changes."
Historical and artistic heritage
The dossier "Religious Spaces" brings together texts presented at a seminar organized by IEA's research group Time, Memory, and Belonging in November 2019. The event took stock of current studies on historical and artistic heritage preserved in religious and institutional Catholic spaces in Brazil.
From the context of connected global/local histories, the text "Encrypted/Connected Paths: Jesuit Heritage between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo" addresses the trajectories of destruction, dispersion, reconstruction, and preservation that marked the history of Jesuit heritage in the Southeast Region, particularly from the old schools in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and from mission locations on the coast of these states.
In additional four articles, the dossier also discusses the decoration of the São Miguel Arcanjo Chapel, located in the East Zone of the city of São Paulo, the formation of the Jesuit Sacred Art Museum in Embu das Artes, the establishment of Catholic spaces by the black population of São Paulo in the 19th century, and the artistic aspect of the restoration of the Brazilian Benedictine Congregation, promoted by the Congregation of Beuron through the work of members of the Beuron Art School.
The list below contains the names of the authors who have contributed with each one of the addressed themes:
Energy and Environment
Evangelina da M. P. A. de Araújo Vormittag, Samirys Sara Rodrigues Cirqueira, Hélio W. Neto, and Paulo H. N. Saldiva
Ana Paula G. Martins, Andreza P. Ribeiro, Maurício L. Ferreira, Marco Antonio G. Martins, Elnara M. Negri, Marcos Antônio Scapin, Anderson de Oliveira, Mitiko Saiki, Paulo H. N. Saldiva, and Raffaele Lafortezza
Fernanda de Moura Fernandes, Gilberto Loguercio Collares, and Rafael Corteletti
Gerbeson Carlos B. Dantas, Marcus V. S. Rodrigues, Leonardo M. X. Silva, Marisete D. de Aquino, and Antônio Clécio F. Thomaz
Eunice Helena S. Abascal and Carlos A. Bilbao
Paulo Roberto Feldmann
Spensy K. Pimentel
Hybrids of Knowledge
Michele D. Fontana, Fabiano de A. Moreira, Silvia Serrao-Neumann, Giulia Lucertini, Denis Maragno, and Gabriela M. Di Giulio
Pedro Henrique Campello Torres, Alberto Matenhauer Urbinatti, Carla Gomes, Luísa Schmidt, Ana Lia Leonel, Sandra Momm, and Pedro Roberto Jacobi
Vanessa Lucena Empinotti, Natalia D. Tadeu, Maria Christina Fragkou, and Paulo Antonio de Almeida Sinisgalli
Mariana G. Arteiro da Paz, Ana Paula Fracalanza, Estela Macedo Alves, and Flávio J. Rocha da Silva
Pedro Roberto Jacobi, Marcos Buckeridge, and Wagner Costa Ribeiro
Religious Spaces
Renata Maria de Almeida Martins
Thais Cristina Montanari
Angélica Brito Silva
Fabrício Forganes Santos
Klency Kakazu de Brito Yang