Dr Vanessa Bowden

Responding to the existential threat of climate change is often seen as requiring greater reflexivity. Imbued with notions of resilience and reflection, reflexivity is assumed to contribute to pro-environmental change. However, as the need to manage climate impacts becomes more immediate, political struggles over climate adaptation have become increasingly apparent. These impacts occur most often within local communities, in the context of competing economic interests and differing interpretations of climate science. Thus while it is increasingly difficult to deny climate change, conflicting priorities can lead to ignorance. In these circumstances, how communities build and share knowledge, and negotiate responses is central. Based on a study of a vulnerable region in Australia, we identify three processes through which the local community mobilized to disrupt local climate change adaptation. These included emphasizing uncertainty about the science of climate change, encouraging fear about property prices, and repositioning property owners as victims of climate adaptation policy. We argue that this response to climate adaptation constitutes the production of reflexive ignorance, which reinforces skepticism around scientific authority and defends particular economic interests.

Complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) are popular amongst cancer patients in the Brazilian context, however little is known about oncology health professionals' attitudes toward the role of CAM and their perspectives on the potential for integration into oncological care. In this study, drawing on a series of interviews with oncology professionals (i.e. doctors, nurses, nutritionists, pharmacologists and psychologists), we provide insight into their views on the rise, validity, and role of CAM in cancer care. The results reveal two key dynamics in relation to CAM in cancer care in Brazil. First, that doctors, nurses and other allied professionals hold considerably different views on the value and place of CAM, and in turn ascribe it varying levels of legitimacy potentially limiting integration. Second, that while some health professionals may articulate a degree of support for CAM, this is limited by perceptions of CAM as lacking efficacy and intruding on their respective jurisdictional claims. Further research is needed in the Brazilian context to explore patient and professional perspectives on experiences on CAM in cancer care, including how oncology professionals' varying positions on CAM may influence what patients are prepared to use, or discuss, in the context of cancer care.