International Journal of Social Quality

The challenge of sustainability of all forms of life on this planet concerns directly the actors, agencies, and other forms of the sociopolitical/legal dimension of societies. This has been confirmed by all members of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) in the past decade, who said to follow the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the UN (2015). As argued by Marco Ricceri (2019), with the Paris Agreement in mind, these member states presented a self-imposed and relevant assignment, which will or should function as their frame of reference. His analysis of the recent history of this platform was also based on the current characteristics of the social quality approach which also are relevant for this editorial (IASQ 2019).

Discrimination against women and other vulnerable groups prevailed throughout the twentieth century; it persists today. This historical case study analyzes the life and times of “Typhoid Mary,” an unmarried, Irish Catholic, immigrant woman who was persecuted as an intransigent carrier of a deadly infectious disease. Being a Mexican immigrant, Muslim, or unattractive woman could condemn someone for similar mistreatment today. The failure to overcome prejudice impedes the effectiveness of public health to protect infected patients and susceptible persons from harm and to interrupt disease transmission in communities; it jeopardizes the realization of social quality. Social justice, solidarity, equal valuation, and human dignity will be achieved through resistance to the human rights violations of the Trump administration and the resilience of strong women like Mary Mallon.

Governments have previously sought to reduce climate-change-inducing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere through mitigation and adaptation activities, with limited success. New approaches are being explored, such as negative emissions technologies, including carbon dioxide removal, as well as solar geoengineering, also known as solar radiation management, or modification. This article outlines these emerging technologies focusing on bioenergy, carbon capture and storage, and stratospheric aerosol injection, and explores some of the challenges they pose. Prevention of emissions and their reliable, safe, and environmentally benign removal remain the best options. Robust governance systems and a careful, unbiased, and knowledge-driven assessment of the risks of these emerging technologies are required before they are implemented any further.

This article uses Karl Marx's notions of alienation and antagonism to understand human connection, defined as the interrelationship between human beings that helps transcend self-interest and fosters the sense of solidarity. The Marxian notions are revisited using the works of Amartya Sen, particularly those on identity and violence. Sen's critique of rationality is discussed, invoking his notions of sympathy, antipathy, and commitment. The article uses two texts, Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Manik Bandyopadhyay's Ekannoborti, as vantage points to understand the key concepts of Marx and Sen. It then discusses the backgrounds of the authors and the political interpretations of their work and shows how the overriding importance ascribed to a particular identity may convolute the literary motivation of an author.

Human rights debates seem to be a little bit in a dead end: on the one hand, taken for granted is defined diffusion of human rights; on the other there seems to be in permanent confrontation two incompatible positions, each of them suggesting the other side is in breach of the rules. One is the position that emphasizes the societal dimension of rights; on the other camp, we find those striving for what may be seen as a civic liberty interpretation This article shows that both positions miss a crucial challenge: both human rights theory and practice must be refocused and consider human rights as part of the process of society building, maintenance, and change.

The debate on precarization in Germany is, on the one hand, based on the French discussion, it is, on the other hand, oriented toward German models of discourse, which leads to different focuses and objectives. Even if in German contexts the poverty situation and unqualified workers are the main topics of discussion, the French debate on precarization with or following Pierre Bourdieu, Robert Castel, and Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello focuses on precarization as a restructuring of labor relations. In this respect, a change of vectors is taking place here, which sets different priorities. Differences in the classifications result from the different “theoretical localizations,” which are investigated based on the German-French understanding of sociology and are concretized in relation to the problem of precarization.