Journal articles on the topic 'Electric power distribution Environmental aspects Victoria'

The article presents the assessment of the environmental impact of 9 variants of building heat supply for heating purposes. The building energy standards and the main primary energy carriers being in use in Poland were taken as input data. The subject of analysis was a single-family house characterized by a utility energy demand of 47 kWh/(m2 year). An environmental impact analysis was made using the specification for LCA in damage categories encompassing human health, ecosystem quality and natural resources depletion. From the obtained results it has been found that coal-based technologies in Poland's building energy supply systems are capable of reducing the noxious environmental impact. An example of such a system is the effective heat distribution network with a coal-based cogeneration energy source. From the point of view of radical low emission reduction, an interesting solution is the effective heat distribution network with a gas-based cogeneration energy source. Nevertheless, forecasts about the development of renewable energy source installations in Poland indicate that a significant role in building heat supply systems will be played by solar systems and geothermal systems using heat pumps. Achieving the environmental acceptance of heat pumps in Poland's conditions requires a decisive intensification of efforts to increase the share of renewable energy sources in electric energy generation processes in the central electric power system and in local and individual systems, as well as the continuation of the processes of thermal insulation of already existing buildings.

The use of renewable energy, within nowadays energy policy, has increased considerably all over the world in order to respond to the increasing energy consumption and to reduce the environmental impact of the electricity generation. At the beginning, the relatively low penetration levels of distributed generation does not produce problems, however, the nowadays massive increase of local power generation have led to new integration challenges in order to ensure the reliability and quality of the power supply. This paper also highlights some aspects regarding the use of the active distribution networks of low voltage to which electric energy producers are connected-the prosumers: advantages and disadvantages for the consumer and for the supplier, technical requirements for connection, identification of the problems of power quality.

Growing shortage of fossil resources and an increasing demand of individual mobility worldwide require technology alternatives to existing mobility solutions. Electric vehicles (EVs) as one possible solution have moved into the focus of research and development. To maximize the positive environmental effect of EVs, it is proposed to charge them with respect to the availability of renewable energies. As the number of EVs will grow in the near future, their impact on the power distribution grid is no longer neglectable. Related research shows that unmanaged charging of EVs could result in overload situations or voltage instabilities. To overcome this, methods are proposed to manage the charging process holistically. Herein EVs become substantial elements of intelligent power grids (Smart Grids). As of today, research in the area of Smart Grids focuses mainly on either energy aspects or communication aspects while neglecting the interoperability of energy and communication related aspects. In this paper, an insight into Information and Communication Technology (ICT) aspects with respect to Managed Charging of EVs in Smart Grid environments will be given. Based on the use case of Managed Charging, requirements will be analyzed, results will be derived, and ICT solutions will be proposed with a set of recommendations for Smart Grid architectures.

Assessment of overhead transmission lines is a crucial task in the asset management of electric power infrastructures. Any assets have different life spans and require proper assessment and maintenance actions. Disruption of the power supply may cause national problems. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that the distribution and transmission of electric power from the power plant to end consumers is achieved without fail. This paper presents a proposed framework of health index of the transmission line using a condition-based method. This study refers to previous methods in determining the health index of electrical power assets, mainly transformer and transmission line. Three main indicators contributed and need to be considered in determining the health index. The indicators are structural, electrical and environmental aspects. The health index of these three indicators with 14 items was calculated, and the overall health index of the transmission line determined. From the case study conducted for this study, the specific location, tower and item can be acknowledged that cause the failure and the service interruption of energy supply to the consumer. It is found that the implementation of the health index calculation gives a more accurate description of the health status of a transmission line. The health index can be used for the prioritizing of maintenance, refurbishment or replacement to avoid disruption.

Environment deterioration, energy shortage and ever rising fuel price makes green transportation a necessity. Being an alternative to fossil fuels vehicles, Electric Vehicles (EVs) exemplify the most popular approach of electrification to a substantial portion of the transportation sector. Recently, usage of renewable energy resources (RERs) is also increased because of its economic and environmental concerns over traditional resources in the new electric power systems. Variable reliability aspects of RERs increase the complexity of safe and stable operation of grid. Therefore, EV will further increase this uncertainty and variability when being connected randomly to the grid in large scale. This paper not only highlights the EV’s related challenges/issues and presents a brief comprehensive review of recent researches. But, also demonstrates a simulation methodology for analyzing the impact of EVs under various charging scenarios on an independent distribution grid in presence of RERs. The results show the creation of new peak loads which in some cases may exceed the grid capacity and threaten the stability and reliability.

Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs) have been proven to be a promising solution to environmental pollution and fuel savings. The benefit of the solution is generally realized as the amount of fuel consumption saved, which by itself represents a challenge to develop the right energy management strategies (EMSs) for HEVs. Moreover, meeting the design requirements are essential for optimal power distribution at the price of conflicting objectives. To this end, a significant number of EMSs have been proposed in the literature, which require a categorization method to better classify the design and control contributions, with an emphasis on fuel economy, providing power demand, and real-time applicability. The presented review targets two main headlines: (a) offline EMSs wherein global optimization-based EMSs and rule-based EMSs are presented; and (b) online EMSs, under which instantaneous optimization-based EMSs, predictive EMSs, and learning-based EMSs are put forward. Numerous methods are introduced, given the main focus on the presented scheme, and the basic principle of each approach is elaborated and compared along with its advantages and disadvantages in all aspects. In this sequel, a comprehensive literature review is provided. Finally, research gaps requiring more attention are identified and future important trends are discussed from different perspectives. The main contributions of this work are twofold. Firstly, state-of-the-art methods are introduced under a unified framework for the first time, with an extensive overview of existing EMSs for HEVs. Secondly, this paper aims to guide researchers and scholars to better choose the right EMS method to fill in the gaps for the development of future-generation HEVs.

The continuous expansion of the scale of power grid construction has led to the emergence and development of the uninterrupted operation of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) distribution network. However, in the actual power production process, due to the limitations of operating conditions and environment, power safety accidents are inevitable. With the support of intelligent technology, the monitoring effect and application level of the safety monitoring system for the uninterrupted operation of the UAV distribution network have been improved. Unified planning and scheduling were carried out throughout the job implementation process. The efficiency of equipment safety management has been strengthened, which is of great practical significance to the safe production of electric power. Based on the analysis of the environmental characteristics and implementation difficulties of the unmanned aerial vehicle distribution network, this paper studied the safety monitoring system and method by combining the high intelligence and high-efficiency characteristics of the learning control robot technology. The designed unmanned aerial vehicle distribution network safety monitoring system and method were tested. In order to understand the effect of the system intuitively, this paper analyzed from three aspects: system sensitivity, anti-interference, and data acquisition and management. It also contrasted with traditional monitoring systems. The test data showed that the sensitivity test value of the traditional monitoring system in the R1 circuit with the lowest voltage intensity was 71.3%. In the R4 circuit with the strongest voltage intensity, the test value only reached 84.4%. The test values of the system in this paper in the two types of circuits were 85.6% and 93.3%, respectively. In the data acquisition and management test, the acquisition and management rates under the highest numerical information could reach more than 97%. It can be seen that it has strong feasibility in actual operation.

This study contributes to knowledge of Anopheles species, including vectors of Plasmodium from the western Brazilian Amazon in Porto Velho, Rondônia State. The sampling area has undergone substantial environmental changes as a consequence of agricultural and hydroelectric projects, which have caused intensive deforestation and favored habitats for some mosquito species. The purpose of this study was to diagnose the occurrence of anopheline species from collections in three locations along an electric-power transmission line. Each locality was sampled three times from 2010 to 2011. The principal adult mosquitoes captured in Shannon trap were Anopheles darlingi, An. triannulatus, An. nuneztovari l.s., An.gilesi and An. costai. In addition, larvae were collected in ground breeding sites for Anopheles braziliensis, An. triannulatus, An. darlingi, An. deaneorum, An. marajoara, An. peryassui, An. nuneztovari l.s. and An. oswaldoi-konderi. Anopheles darlingi was the most common mosquito in the region. We discuss Culicidae systematics, fauna distribution, and aspects of malaria in altered habitats of the western Amazon.

The purpose of this paper is to address an urgent operational issue referring to optimal power flow (OPF), which is associated with a number of technical and financial aspects relating to issues of environmental concern. In the last few decades, OPF has become one of the most significant issues in nonlinear optimization research. OPF generally improves the performance of electric power distribution, transmission, and production within the constraints of the control system. It is the purpose of an OPF to determine the most optimal way to run a power system. For the power system, OPFs can be created with a variety of financial and technical objectives. Based on these findings, this paper proposes the peafowl optimization algorithm (POA). A powerful meta-heuristic optimization algorithm inspired by collective foraging activities among peafowl swarms. By balancing local exploitation with worldwide exploration, the OPF is able to strike a balance between exploration and exploitation. In order to solve optimization problems involving OPF, using the standard IEEE 14-bus and 57-bus electrical network, a POA has been employed to find the optimal values of the control variables. Further, there are five study cases, namely, reducing fuel costs, real energy losses, voltage skew, fuel cost as well as reducing energy loss and voltage skew, and reducing fuel costs as well as reducing energy loss and voltage deviation, as well as reducing emissions costs. The use of these cases facilitates a fair and comprehensive evaluation of the superiority and effectiveness of POA in comparison with the coot optimization algorithm (COOT), golden jackal optimization algorithm (GJO), heap-based optimizer (HPO), leader slime mold algorithm (LSMA), reptile search algorithm (RSA), sand cat optimization algorithm (SCSO), and the skills optimization algorithm (SOA). Based on simulations, POA has been demonstrated to outperform its rivals, including COOT, GJO, HPO, LSMA, RSA, SCSO, and SOA. In addition, the results indicate that POA is capable of identifying the most appropriate worldwide solutions. It is also successfully investigating preferred search locations, ensuring a fast convergence speed and enhancing the search engine’s capabilities.

Interest in and demand for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) is growing strongly due to the increasing awareness of climate change and specific decarbonization goals. One of the largest challenges remains the provision of large-scale, efficient charging infrastructure in multi-apartment buildings. Successful load management (LM) for BEV charging directly influences the technical requirements and the economic and environmental aspects of charging infrastructure and can prevent costly distribution grid expansion. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate potential LM approaches in multi-apartment buildings to avoid an increase in existing electricity demand peaks with BEV diffusion. Using our model parameters, off-peak charging achieved a 40% reduction in the building’s demand peak at 100% BEV diffusion compared to uncontrolled charging and reduced the correlation between BEV charging and the national share of thermal power generation. The most efficient charging capacity in the private network was achieved at 0.44 kW/BEV. A verification of the model results with the demonstration phase of the “Urcharge” project supports our overall findings. Our results outline the advantages of LM across a large-scale BEV charging network to control the impact on the electricity system along with the diffusion of e-mobility.

AbstractBauxite, the raw material of aluminum, has been one of the economically vital natural resources for Suriname. Mining operations started about a century ago, and subsequent development of a refinery industry and hydro-electric power made Suriname one of the foremost bauxite and alumina producers worldwide for a long period of time. This paper presents a concise survey of the main geological attributes of its bauxite deposits and examines significant aspects in the development of mining in the country where alumina dominated the export revenues until a decade ago. The lateritic bauxite deposits are spread across the northern part of the country and developed on various parent rocks during Late Cretaceous–Early Tertiary times. Bauxites in the coastal lowlands formed on Cenozoic sedimentary deposits, whereas plateau bauxites originated on various crystalline rocks in inland regions of the Precambrian Guiana Shield. The composition of parent rocks and timing of bauxitisation point to a genetic correspondence with West African bauxites and a strong control of paleoclimatic conditions on the distribution and properties of bauxite in both regions. The more accessible bauxite deposits in the coastal lowlands are almost mined out, whereas the plateau bauxites have been extensively explored but have not been brought into production to date. For economic and environmental reasons, the future of the bauxite industry in Suriname is currently uncertain.

At present, issues of assessing the impact of economic activity on the environment as an integral part of the country’s economic development are becoming more and more relevant. Environmental problems of the development of a marine economy complex may restrain the development of the economic potential of the state. Moreover, the dynamic development of the state’s economy is possible only when economic entities adhere to the norms of an ecological nature. In this regard, the problem of assessing the impact on the environment, in particular, in the maritime complex in the projection of the economic component of development, as well as in this sense and the rational use of natural resources, is of paramount importance. The environmental tension is most often due to the placement of powerful chemical and petrochemical industries in the area of the maritime complex. In some areas, the level of environmental pollution is quite high due to the location of large facilities in the electric power industry (thermal and nuclear power plants). The economic component of the environmental impact assessment of the maritime complex is that one and the same natural resource is most often used by the economic entities of several countries. Therefore, the assessment of the impact on the environment and the achievement of a balanced distribution of ecological and economic benefits for the rational use of natural resources, especially in the maritime complex, are today of great relevance. The purpose of the article is to analyse the problems of ecological and economic orientation in the maritime complex and, on the basis of generalization of such problems, to provide recommendations on systematization of measures for the comprehensive rational development of economic relations, taking into account the features of the coastal zone and the marine economic complex. Methodology. Analytical market reviews, materials of periodicals, resources of the Internet are the informational and methodological basis of the investigation. To achieve the goal set, the following general scientific and special methods were used: economic and mathematical methods, structural-logical analysis, analogy, synthesis, comparison and integration, factor analysis. Result. The system of measures of an economic and legal nature, which should be taken into account for successful and rational use of the marine economic complex in economic activity, is substantiated. Problematic aspects and directions of their elimination are determined. The proposed model of the ecological and economic system of the maritime complex acquires a special significance in the context of the supranational task of developing measures for optimizing and rational use of natural resources on a global scale. The directions of the reform of the legal framework are considered. Practical value. The system of measures of economic and legal character and their individual types can be applied for optimization and rational use of marine (water) resources, taking into account the peculiarities of economic development and the state of the marine-economic complex in Ukraine and in other states. Value/originality. Most scientific works are devoted to the consideration of theoretical aspects of ecologicaleconomic systems, namely, the refinement of the essence of this instrument as a form of modern financial and economic dynamics. A part of the work is devoted to the consideration of the common features and national peculiarities of ecological and economic systems in individual countries and regions. The authors consider the issues of elaboration of measures for the optimization of economic activity, which combines the abovementioned aspects with the peculiarities of the formation of ecological-economic systems in the marine faring complex. It is also important to take into account the impact of planned legislative reforms on the development of economic activity in the marine faring complex of Ukraine. The account of the peculiarities of the maritime complex in the framework of the national economy allowed developing directions for its further development.

At present, issues of assessing the impact of economic activity on the environment as an integral part of the country’s economic development are becoming more and more relevant. Environmental problems of the development of a marine economy complex may restrain the development of the economic potential of the state. Moreover, the dynamic development of the state’s economy is possible only when economic entities adhere to the norms of an ecological nature. In this regard, the problem of assessing the impact on the environment, in particular, in the maritime complex in the projection of the economic component of development, as well as in this sense and the rational use of natural resources, is of paramount importance. The environmental tension is most often due to the placement of powerful chemical and petrochemical industries in the area of the maritime complex. In some areas, the level of environmental pollution is quite high due to the location of large facilities in the electric power industry (thermal and nuclear power plants). The economic component of the environmental impact assessment of the maritime complex is that one and the same natural resource is most often used by the economic entities of several countries. Therefore, the assessment of the impact on the environment and the achievement of a balanced distribution of ecological and economic benefits for the rational use of natural resources, especially in the maritime complex, are today of great relevance. The purpose of the article is to analyse the problems of ecological and economic orientation in the maritime complex and, on the basis of generalization of such problems, to provide recommendations on systematization of measures for the comprehensive rational development of economic relations, taking into account the features of the coastal zone and the marine economic complex. Methodology. Analytical market reviews, materials of periodicals, resources of the Internet are the informational and methodological basis of the investigation. To achieve the goal set, the following general scientific and special methods were used: economic and mathematical methods, structural-logical analysis, analogy, synthesis, comparison and integration, factor analysis. Result. The system of measures of an economic and legal nature, which should be taken into account for successful and rational use of the marine economic complex in economic activity, is substantiated. Problematic aspects and directions of their elimination are determined. The proposed model of the ecological and economic system of the maritime complex acquires a special significance in the context of the supranational task of developing measures for optimizing and rational use of natural resources on a global scale. The directions of the reform of the legal framework are considered. Practical value. The system of measures of economic and legal character and their individual types can be applied for optimization and rational use of marine (water) resources, taking into account the peculiarities of economic development and the state of the marine-economic complex in Ukraine and in other states. Value/originality. Most scientific works are devoted to the consideration of theoretical aspects of ecological-economic systems, namely, the refinement of the essence of this instrument as a form of modern financial and economic dynamics. A part of the work is devoted to the consideration of the common features and national peculiarities of ecological and economic systems in individual countries and regions. The authors consider the issues of elaboration of measures for the optimization of economic activity, which combines the abovementioned aspects with the peculiarities of the formation of ecological-economic systems in the marine faring complex. It is also important to take into account the impact of planned legislative reforms on the development of economic activity in the marine faring complex of Ukraine. The account of the peculiarities of the maritime complex in the framework of the national economy allowed developing directions for its further development.

AbstractIn this paper, a new nature-inspire meta-heuristic algorithm called future search algorithm (FSA) is proposed for the first time to solve the simultaneous optimal allocation of distribution generation (DG) and electric vehicle (EV) fleets considering techno-environmental aspects in the operation and control of radial distribution networks (RDN). By imitating the human behavior in getting fruitful life, the FSA starts arbitrary search, discovers neighborhood best people in different nations and looks at worldwide best individuals to arrive at an ideal solution. A techno-environmental multi-objective function is formulated using real power loss, voltage stability index. The active and reactive power compensation limits and different operational constraints of RDN are considered while minimizing the proposed objective function. Post optimization, the impact of DGs on conventional energy sources is analyzed by evaluating their greenhouse gas emission. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is presented using different case studies on Indian practical 106-bus agriculture feeder for DGs and 36-bus rural residential feeder for simultaneous allocation of DGs and EV fleets. Also, the superiority of FSA in terms of global optima, convergence characteristics is compared with various other recent heuristic algorithms.

Followed by the extensive activation of demand side entities, the anti-competitive and monopolistic aspects of distribution system operator (DSO) is becoming more apparent. The business model of the DSO and its regulations are not capable enough to fully leverage the capacity of emerging technologies and responsive prosumers. This paper criticized the challenges/deficits revolving around the conventional DSO model and proposes an interactive platform based on the sharing economy business model at the network level. The electricity distribution stakeholders’ organization (EDSO) as the substitute of DSO in active distribution networks is developed based on the collaborative governance decision-making model. The EDSO has the privilege to legislate on the platform operation and its main policy is to preserve the public interest as well as the integrity of electric distribution system. The superiority of proposed operation model is its non-monopolistic and non-profit nature which materializes the perfect competition of active customers and guaranties their maximum utilization.

There is a moment in Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth devised to expose the sheer audacity of fossil fuel lobby groups in the United States. In their attempts to address significant scientific consensus and growing public concern over climate change, these groups are resorting to what Gore’s film suggests are grotesque distortions of fact. A particular example highlighted in the film is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CPE—a lobby group funded by ExxonMobil) “pro” energy industry advertisement: “Carbon dioxide”, the ad states. “They call it pollution, we call it life.” While on the one hand employing rhetoric against the “inconvenient truth” that carbon dioxide emissions are ratcheting up the Earth’s temperature, these advertisements also pose a question – though perhaps unintended – that is worth addressing. Where does life reside? This is not an issue of essentialism, but relates to the claims, materials and technologies through which life as a political object emerges. The danger of entertaining the vested interests of polluting industry in a discussion of climate change and its biopolitics is countered by an imperative to acknowledge the ways in which multiple positions in the climate change debate invoke and appeal to ‘life’ as the bottom line, or inviolable interest, of their political, social or economic work. In doing so, other questions come to the fore that a politics of climate change framed in terms of moral positions or competing values will tend to overlook. These questions concern the manifold practices of life that constitute the contemporary terrain of the political, and the actors and instruments put in this employ. Who speaks for life? And who or what produces it? Climate change as a matter of concern (Latour) has gathered and generated a host of experts, communities, narratives and technical devices all invested in the administration of life. It is, as Malcom Bull argues, “the paradigmatic issue of the new politics,” a politics which “draws people towards the public realm and makes life itself subject to the caprices of state and market” (2). This paper seeks to highlight the politics of life that have emerged around climate change as a public issue. It will argue that these politics appear in incremental and multiple ways that situate an array of actors and interests as active in both contesting and generating the terms of life: what life is and how we come to know it. This way of thinking about climate change debates opposes a prevalent moralistic framework that reads the practices and discourses of debate in terms of oppositional positions alone. While sympathies may flow in varying directions, especially when it comes to such a highly charged and massively consequential issue as climate change, there is little insight to be had from charging the CPE (for example) with manipulating consumers, or misrepresenting well-known facts. Where new and more productive understandings open up is in relation to the fields through which these gathering actors play out their claims to the project of life. These fields, from the state, to the corporation, to the domestic sphere, reveal a complex network of strategies and devices that seek to secure life in constantly renovated terms. Life Politics Biopolitical scholarship in the wake of Foucault has challenged life as a pre-given uncritical category, and sought to highlight the means through which it is put under question and constituted through varying and composing assemblages of practitioners and practices. Such work regards the project of human well-being as highly complex and technical, and has undertaken to document this empirically through close attention to the everyday ecologies in which humans are enmeshed. This is a political and theoretical project in itself, situating political processes in micro, as well as macro, registers, including daily life as a site of (self) management and governance. Rabinow and Rose refer to biopolitical circuits that draw together and inter-relate the multiple sites and scales operative in the administration of life. These involve not just technologies, rationalities and regimes of authority and control, but also politics “from below” in the form of rights claims and community formation and agitation (198). Active in these circuits, too, are corporate and non-state interests for whom the pursuit of maximising life’s qualities and capabilities has become a concern through which “market relations and shareholder value” are negotiated (Rabinow and Rose 211). As many biopolitical scholars argue, biopower—the strategies through which biopolitics are enacted—is characteristic of the “disciplinary neo-liberalism” that has come to define the modern state, and through which the conduct of conduct is practiced (Di Muzio 305). Foucault’s concept of governmentality describes the devolution of state-based disciplinarity and sovereignty to a host of non-state actors, rationalities and strategies of governing, including the self-managing subject, not in opposition to the state, but contributing to its form. According to Bratich, Packer and McCarthy, everyday life is thus “saturated with governmental techniques” (18) in which we are all enrolled. Unlike regimes of biopolitics identified with what Agamben terms “thanopolitics”—the exercise of biopower “which ultimately rests on the power of some to threaten the death of others” (Rabinow and Rose 198), such as the Nazi’s National Socialism and other eugenic campaigns—governmental arts in the service of “vitalist” biopolitics (Rose 1) are increasingly diffused amongst all those with an “interest” in sustaining life, from organisations to individuals. The integration of techniques of self-governance which ask the individual to work on themselves and their own dispositions with State functions has broadened the base by which life is governed, and foregrounded an unsettled terrain of life claims. Rose argues that medical science is at the forefront of these contemporary biopolitics, and to this effect “has […] been fully engaged in the ethical questions of how we should live—of what kinds of creatures we are, of the kinds of obligations that we have to ourselves and to others, of the kinds of techniques we can and should use to improve ourselves” (20). Asking individuals to self-identify through their medical histories and bodily specificities, medical cultures are also shaping new political arrangements, as communities connected by shared genetics or physical conditions, for instance, emerge, evolve and agitate according to the latest medical knowledge. Yet it is not just medicine that provokes ethical work and new political forms. The environment is a key site for life politics that entails a multi-faceted discourse of obligations and entitlements, across fields and scales of engagement. Calculating Environments In line with neo-liberal logic, environmental discourse concerned with ameliorating climate change has increasingly focused upon the individual as an agent of self-monitoring, to both facilitate government agendas at a distance, and to “self-fashion” in the mode of the autonomous subject, securing against external risks (Ong 501). Climate change is commonly represented as such a risk, to both human and non-human life. A recent letter published by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in two leading British medical journals, named climate change as the “biggest global health threat of the twenty-first century” (Morton). As I have argued elsewhere (Potter), security is central to dominant cultures of environmental governance in the West; these cultures tie sustainability goals to various and interrelated regimes of monitoring which attach to concepts of what Clark and Stevenson call “the good ecological citizen” (238). Citizenship is thus practiced through strategies of governmentality which call on individuals to invest not just in their own well-being, but in the broader project of life. Calculation is a primary technique through which modern environmental governance is enacted; calculative strategies are seen to mediate risk, according to Foucault, and consequently to “assure living” (Elden 575). Rationalised schemes for self-monitoring are proliferating under climate change and the project of environmentalism more broadly, something which critics of neo-liberalism have identified as symptomatic of the privatisation of politics that liberal governmentality has fostered. As we have seen in Australia, an evolving policy emphasis on individual practices and the domestic sphere as crucial sites of environmental action – for instance, the introduction of domestic water restrictions, and the phasing out of energy-inefficient light bulbs in the home—provides a leading discourse of ethico-political responsibility. The rise of carbon dioxide counting is symptomatic of this culture, and indicates the distributed fields of life management in contemporary governmentality. Carbon dioxide, as the CPE is keen to point out, is crucial to life, but it is also—in too large an amount—a force of destruction. Its management, in vitalist terms, is thus established as an effort to protect life in the face of death. The concept of “carbon footprinting” has been promoted by governments, NGOs, industry and individuals as a way of securing this goal, and a host of calculative techniques and strategies are employed to this end, across a spectrum of activities and contexts all framed in the interests of life. The footprinting measure seeks to secure living via self-policed limits, which also—in classic biopolitical form—shift previously private practices into a public realm of count-ability and accountability. The carbon footprint, like its associates the ecological footprint and the water footprint, has developed as a multi-faceted tool of citizenship beyond the traditional boundaries of the state. Suggesting an ecological conception of territory and of our relationships and responsibilities to this, the footprint, as a measure of resource use and emissions relative to the Earth’s capacities to absorb these, calculates and visualises the “specific qualities” (Elden 575) that, in a spatialised understanding of security, constitute and define this territory. The carbon footprint’s relatively simple remit of measuring carbon emissions per unit of assessment—be that the individual, the corporation, or the nation—belies the ways in which life is formatted and produced through its calculations. A tangled set of devices, practices and discourses is employed to make carbon and thus life calculable and manageable. Treading Lightly The old environmental adage to “tread lightly upon the Earth” has been literalised in the metaphor of the footprint, which attempts both to symbolise environmental practice and to directly translate data in order to meaningfully communicate necessary boundaries for our living. The World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report 2008 exemplifies the growing popularity of the footprint as a political and poetic hook: speaking in terms of our “ecological overshoot,” and the move from “ecological credit to ecological deficit”, the report urges an attendance to our “global footprint” which “now exceeds the world’s capacity to regenerate by about 30 per cent” (1). Angela Crombie’s A Lighter Footprint, an instruction manual for sustainable living, is one of a host of media through which individuals are educated in modes of footprint calculation and management. She presents a range of techniques, including carbon offsetting, shifting to sustainable modes of transport, eating and buying differently, recycling and conserving water, to mediate our carbon dioxide output, and to “show […] politicians how easy it is” (13). Governments however, need no persuading from citizens that carbon calculation is an exercise to be harnessed. As governments around the world move (slowly) to address climate change, policies that instrumentalise carbon dioxide emission and reduction via an auditing of credits and deficits have come to the fore—for example, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and the Chicago Climate Exchange. In Australia, we have the currently-under-debate Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a part of which is the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (AETS) that will introduce a system of “carbon credits” and trading in a market-based model of supply and demand. This initiative will put a price on carbon dioxide emissions, and cap the amount of emissions any one polluter can produce without purchasing further credits. In readiness for the scheme, business initiatives are forming to take advantage of this new carbon market. Industries in carbon auditing and off-setting services are consolidating; hectares of trees, already active in the carbon sequestration market, are being cultivated as “carbon sinks” and key sites of compliance for polluters under the AETS. Governments are also planning to turn their tracts of forested public land into carbon credits worth billions of dollars (Arup 7). The attachment of emission measures to goods and services requires a range of calculative experts, and the implementation of new marketing and branding strategies, aimed at conveying the carbon “health” of a product. The introduction of “food mile” labelling (the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the transportation of the food from source to consumer) in certain supermarkets in the United Kingdom is an example of this. Carbon risk analysis and management programs are being introduced across businesses in readiness for the forthcoming “carbon economy”. As one flyer selling “a suite of carbon related services” explains, “early action will give you the edge in understanding and mitigating the risks, and puts you in a prime position to capitalise on the rewards” (MGI Business Solutions Worldwide). In addition, lobby groups are working to ensure exclusions from or the free allocation of permits within the proposed AETS, with degrees of compulsion applied to different industries – the Federal Government, for instance, will provide a $3.9 billion compensation package for the electric power sector when the AETS commences, to enable their “adjustment” to this carbon regime. Performing Life Noortje Mares provides a further means of thinking through the politics of life in the context of climate change by complicating the distinction between public and private interest. Her study of “green living experiments” describes the rise of carbon calculation in the home in recent years, and the implementation of technologies such as the smart electricity meter that provides a constantly updating display of data relating to amounts and cost of energy consumed and the carbon dioxide emitted in the routines of domestic life. Her research tracks the entry of these personal calculative regimes into public life via internet forums such as blogs, where individuals notate or discuss their experiences of pursing low-carbon lifestyles. On the one hand, these calculative practices of living and their public representation can be read as evidencing the pervasive neo-liberal governmentality at work in contemporary environmental practice, where individuals are encouraged to scrupulously monitor their domestic cultures. The rise of auditing as a technology of self, and more broadly as a technique of public accountability, has come under fire for its “immunity-granting role” (Charkiewicz 79), where internal audits become substituted for external compliance and regulation. Mares challenges this reading, however, by demonstrating the ways in which green living experiments “transform everyday material practices into practices of public involvement” that (118) don’t resolve or pin down relations between the individual, the non-human environment, and the social, or reveal a mappable flow of actions and effects between the public realm and the home. The empirical modes of publicity that these individuals employ, “the careful recording of measurements and the reliable descriptions of sensory observation, so as to enable ‘virtual witnessing’ by wider audiences”, open up to much more complex understandings than one of calculative self-discipline at work. As “instrument[s] of public involvement” (120), the experiments that Mares describe locate the politics of life in the embodied socio-material entanglements of the domestic sphere, in arrangements of humans and non-human technologies. Such arrangements, she suggests, are ontologically productive in that they introduce “not only new knowledge, but also new entities […] to society” (119), and as such these experiments and the modes of calculation they employ become active in the composition of reality. Recent work in economic sociology and cultural studies has similarly contended that calculation, far from either a naturalised or thoroughly abstract process, relies upon a host of devices, relations, and techniques: that is, as Gay Hawkins explains, calculative processes “have to be enacted” (108). Environmental governmentality in the service of securing life is a networked practice that draws in a host of actors, not a top-down imposition. The institution of carbon economies and carbon emissions as a new register of public accountability, brings alternative ways to calculate the world into being, and consequently re-calibrates life as it emerges from these heterogeneous arrangements. All That Gathers Latour writes that we come to know a matter of concern by all the things that gather around it (Latour). This includes the human, as well as the non-human actors, policies, practices and technologies that are put to work in the making of our realities. Climate change is routinely represented as a threat to life, with predicted (and occurring) species extinction, growing numbers of climate change refugees, dispossessed from uninhabitable lands, and the rise of diseases and extreme weather scenarios that put human life in peril. There is no doubt, of course, that climate change does mean death for some: indeed, there are thanopolitical overtones in inequitable relations between the fall-out of impacts from major polluting nations on poorer countries, or those much more susceptible to rising sea levels. Biosocial equity, as Bull points out, is a “matter of being equally alive and equally dead” (2). Yet in the biopolitical project of assuring living, life is burgeoning around the problem of climate change. The critique of neo-liberalism as a blanketing system that subjects all aspects of life to market logic, and in which the cynical techniques of industry seek to appropriate ethico-political stances for their own material ends, are insufficient responses to what is actually unfolding in the messy terrain of climate change and its biopolitics. What this paper has attempted to show is that there is no particular purchase on life that can be had by any one actor who gathers around this concern. Varying interests, ambitions, and intentions, without moral hierarchy, stake their claim in life as a constantly constituting site in which they participate, and from this perspective, the ways in which we understand life to be both produced and managed expand. This is to refuse either an opposition or a conflation between the market and nature, or the market and life. It is also to argue that we cannot essentialise human-ness in the climate change debate. For while human relations with animals, plants and weathers may make us what we are, so too do our relations with (in a much less romantic view) non-human things, technologies, schemes, and even markets—from carbon auditing services, to the label on a tin on the supermarket shelf. As these intersect and entangle, the project of life, in the new politics of climate change, is far from straightforward. References An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Village Roadshow, 2006. Arup, Tom. “Victoria Makes Enormous Carbon Stocktake in Bid for Offset Billions.” The Age 24 Sep. 2009: 7. Bratich, Jack Z., Jeremy Packer, and Cameron McCarthy. “Governing the Present.” Foucault, Cultural Studies and Governmentality. Ed. Bratich, Packer and McCarthy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. 3-21. Bull, Malcolm. “Globalization and Biopolitics.” New Left Review 45 (2007): 12 May 2009 . < http://newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2675 >. Charkiewicz, Ewa. “Corporations, the UN and Neo-liberal Bio-politics.” Development 48.1 (2005): 75-83. Clark, Nigel, and Nick Stevenson. “Care in a Time of Catastrophe: Citizenship, Community and the Ecological Imagination.” Journal of Human Rights 2.2 (2003): 235-246. Crombie, Angela. A Lighter Footprint: A Practical Guide to Minimising Your Impact on the Planet. Carlton North, Vic.: Scribe, 2007. Di Muzio, Tim. “Governing Global Slums: The Biopolitics of Target 11.” Global Governance. 14.3 (2008): 305-326. Elden, Stuart. “Governmentality, Calculation and Territory.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 25 (2007): 562-580. Hawkins, Gay. The Ethics of Waste: How We Relate to Rubbish. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2006. Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?: From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30.2 (2004): 225-248. Mares, Noortje. “Testing Powers of Engagement: Green Living Experiments, the Ontological Turn and the Undoability and Involvement.” European Journal of Social Theory 12.1 (2009): 117-133. MGI Business Solutions Worldwide. “Carbon News.” Adelaide. 2 Aug. 2009. Ong, Aihwa. “Mutations in Citizenship.” Theory, Culture and Society 23.2-3 (2006): 499-505. Potter, Emily. “Footprints in the Mallee: Climate Change, Sustaining Communities, and the Nature of Place.” Landscapes and Learning: Place Studies in a Global World. Ed. Margaret Somerville, Kerith Power and Phoenix de Carteret. Sense Publishers. Forthcoming. Rabinow, Paul, and Nikolas Rose. “Biopower Today.” Biosocieties 1 (2006): 195-217. Rose, Nikolas. “The Politics of Life Itself.” Theory, Culture and Society 18.6 (2001): 1-30. World Wildlife Fund. Living Planet Report 2008. Switzerland, 2008.

IntroductionThe popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) bears witness to thriving movement protests worldwide. The development of new hardware technologies such as mobile devices and digital cameras, in particular, has fast enhanced visual communications among users that help document and broadcast contemporary social movements. Using social media with these technologies thus presents new opportunities for grassroots social movement organisations (SMOs) and activist groups to become narrators of their activist lives, and to promote solidarity and recognition for advancing varied civic and political agendas. With the case of a student activist group that led and organised a 10-day occupation protest in Hong Kong, this article examines the idea of new media-savvy SMOs as political curators that employ SNS platforms to (co-)create digital narratives at large-scale movement protests. Invoking the concepts of curation and choreography, it highlights how these processes can work together to encourage contentious engagement and collaboration in contemporary social movements.The New Media-Savvy SMO as Political CuratorWhereas traditional social movement studies stressed the importance of pre-existing social networks and organisational structures for collective action, developments in new information and communication technologies (ICTs) challenge the common theories of how people are drawn into and participate in social movements. In recent years, a spate of research has particularly emphasised the ability of individuals and small groups to self-organise on the Internet (e.g. Rheingold). Lately, observing the use of SNSs such as Facebook and Twitter in contemporary social movements, work in this area has focused on how SNSs enable movement diffusion through personal networks and individuals’ online activities even without either the aid or the oversight of an organisation (e.g. Shirky).However, horizontal activism self-organised by atomised new media users seems insufficient as an explanation of how many recent protest movements achieved their high tides. While the flourishing literature shows writers have correctly centred their study on the changing dynamics in control over information and the growing importance of individual users’ contributions, it fails to account for the crucial role that SMOs continue to play. In fact, recent studies consistently observe the continuing importance of SMOs in mobilising and coordinating collective actions in online environments (Bimber, Flanagin, and Stohl, Collective). Whereas new ICTs have provided activist groups with the instrument to deal with their contentious activities with less cueing and leadership from conventional institutionalised structures, SMOs have created their own new media resources. Nowadays, a significant percentage of protest participants have received their information from online platforms that are run by or affiliated with these organisations. The critical questions remain about the kinds of communication methods they utilise to activate and integrate independent activists’ networks and participation, especially in emerging social media environments.Unfortunately, existing research tends to overlook the discursive potentials and cultural dimensions in online activism while emphasising the cost-effectiveness and organisational function of new ICTs. In particular, social movement and new media scholars merely attended to the ways in which digital media enable widescale, relatively un-coordinated contributions to repositories of resources for networks of activists and interest groups, as SNS applications stress the importance of user participation, openness, and network effects in the processes of content production and sharing. However, the mere existence or even “surplus” (Shirky 27) of “second-order communal goods” (Bimber, Flanagin, and Stohl, “Reconceptualizing” 372)—a collection of resources created collectively but without a bounded community, through video-posting, tagging, and circulation practices engaged in by individuals—does not accidentally result in critical publics that come to take part in political activism. Rather, social movements are, above all, the space for manifesting ideas, choices, and a collective will, in which people produce their own history through their cultural creations and social struggles (Touraine). As such, the alteration of meaning, the struggle to define the situation, and the discursive practices carried out within a social movement are all major aspects of social movements and change (Melucci).Indeed, SMOs and marginalised communities worldwide have increasingly learnt the ability to become narrators of their activist and community lives, and to express solidarity and recognition afforded through technology adoption. The recent proliferation of social media applications and mobile digital technologies has allowed activist groups to create and distribute their own stories regarding concrete actions, ongoing campaigns, and thematic issues of protest movements on more multimedia platforms. In order to advance political ideas and collective action frames, they may bring together a variety of online content in such a way that the collated materials offer a commentary on a subject area by articulating and negotiating new media artefacts, while also inviting responses. Therefore, not only are the new media channels for activist communication comparatively inexpensive, but they also provide for a richer array of content and the possibility of greater control by SMOs over its (re-)creation, maintenance, and distribution for potential digital narrating. To understand how digital narrating takes place in contemporary protest movements with SNSs, we now turn to two analytic concepts—curation and choreography.Social Media Content Curation and Choreography Curation, as a new media practice, involves finding, categorising, and organising relevant online content on specific issues. For instance, museums and libraries may have curators to select and feature digital items for collection and display, improving the types of information accessible to a public audience. In protest movements, SMOs and political actors may also curate peer-produced content on SNS platforms so as to filter and amplify useful information for mobilising collective action. In fact, this process by SMOs and political actors is particularly important, as it helps sort and draw timely attention to these information sources, especially at times when users are faced with a large amount of noise created by millions of producers (Bennett, Segerberg, and Walker). More importantly, not only does content curating entail the selection and preservation of online materials that may facilitate collective action, but it may also involve the (re-)presentation of selected content by telling stories not being told or by telling existing stories in a different way (Fotopoulou and Couldry). In contrast to professional collecting, it is a much more deliberate process, one which clearly articulates and puts forwards (opportunities for) new meanings or new understanding of a subject (Franks). For example, when new media content is re-posted or shared in its original form but in a new context, digital narrating occurs as it may result in a new or additional layer of meaning (Baym and Shah). Therefore, more than merely expending information resources available to activists, the power of curation can be understood primarily as discursive, as users may pick up particular versions of reality in interpreting social issues and protest movements (Bekkers, Moody, and Edwards).Moreover, nowadays, social media curating is not restricted to text but also includes image and video streaming, as the development of mobile devices and digital cameras has facilitated and enhanced instant communication and information retrieval almost regardless of location. The practice of content curating with SNSs may also involve the process of choreographing with various social media modules, such as posting a series of edited pictures under an overarching schema and organising user-generated photos into an album that suggests a particular theme. Rather than simply using a single visual item designed to tell a story, the idea of choreographing is thus concerned with how curated items are seen and experienced from the users’ perspectives as it “allows curators not just to expose elements of a story but to tell a structured tale with the traditional elements of beginning, middle and end” (Franks 288).In practice, the implementation of choreography can be envisioned to bring together the practice of content curating and that of enhancing and connecting contentious engagement at protest movements. For example, when SMOs make use of images and video to help frame an issue in a more advanced way by sharing a picture with a comment added on Facebook, they may at once, whether consciously or unconsciously, suggest possible endorsement to the selected content and/or the source—may it be that of an individual user or a formal organisation—while drawing attention to the image and circulating it beyond the original network for which it was posted (Bennett, Segerberg, and Walker). As such, by posting pictures with captions and sharing user-generated photos that do not belong to the SMO but are produced by other users, curating and choreographing with social media content can create a temporary space for practicing mutual recognition and extending the relationship between the SMO and the larger public. Combined, they may therefore “entail the creation of norms and boundaries in particular user communities and their platforms” (Bennett, Segerberg, and Walker 239).This article examines the ways in which a new media-savvy SMO employed SNS platforms to (co-)create digital narratives, with the case of the 2012 Anti-National Education Movement in Hong Kong. By highlighting how social media content curating and choreographing may work together to encourage engagement and collaboration at large-scale protests, we can better understand how emerging SNS-enabled affordances can be translated into concrete contentious activities, as well as the discursive aspects and cultural expressions of using new media platforms and digital technologies in contemporary protest movements.Digital Narrating for Grassroots Mobilisation Since 2010, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government has undertaken “national education” curriculum reform. However, the worry about mainland-Chinese style national education in schools brought people out to defend values that were held dear in Hong Kong. Scholarism, a new media-savvy SMO founded by about 20 secondary school students in May 2011, became the first pressure group formed against the “Moral and National Education” curriculum and became the leading activist group. On 30 August 2012, about 50 members and supporters of Scholarism started occupying the public area in front of the government’s headquarters, while three of its members went on a hunger strike. At the same time, Scholarism made active use of Facebook to undertake grassroots mobilisation, prompting both online activism and offline participation. On 7 September, over 120,000 people went to Occupy Headquarters. The next day, the Chief Executive, C. Y. Leung, succumbed to the pressure and declared that the curriculum would not be imposed in Hong Kong schools. In order to initiate a grassroots mobilisation, upon the beginning of Occupy Headquarters, Scholarism carried out the new media practice of telling the story of the student hunger strikers on Facebook to create a “moral shock” (Jasper 106) among the general public. On the first day of the occupation protest, 30 August, a poster on the hunger strike was released by Scholarism on its Facebook page. Instead of providing detailed information about the protest movement, this poster was characterised by the pictures of the three student hunger strikers. The headline message simply stated “We have started the hunger strike.” This poster was very popular among Facebook users; it accumulated more than 16,000 likes.By appealing to the hardships and sufferings of the three student hunger strikers, more photos were uploaded to narrate the course of the hunger strike and the occupation protest. In particular, pictures with captions added were posted on Facebook every couple of hours to report on the student hunger strikers’ latest situation. Although the mobilising power of these edited pictures did not come from their political ideology or rational argumentation, they sought to appeal to the “martyr-hood” of the student activists. Soon thereafter, as the social media updates of the student hunger strikers spread, feelings of shock and anger grew rapidly. Most of the comments that were posted under the updates and photos of the student hunger strikers on Scholarism’s Facebook page protested against the government’s brutality.In addition, as the movement grew, Scholarism extended the self-reporting activities on Facebook from members to non-members. For instance, it frequently (self-)reported on the amount of people joining the movement days and nights. This was especially so on 7 September, when Scholarism uploaded multiple photos and text messages to report on the physical movement of the 120,000 people. As a movement strategy, the display of images of protests and rallies on the Internet can help demonstrate the legitimacy, unity, numbers, and commitment of people supporting the movement goals (Carty and Onyett). Curating and choreographing with protest images on Facebook therefore facilitated the symbolic interactions and emotional exchanges among activists for maintaining movement solidarity and consolidating activist identity.To demonstrate the public support for its organisation and the movement, Scholarism extensively reported on its own, as well as other, protest activities and efforts on Facebook against the introduction of the “Moral and National Education” curriculum, creating unprecedented parallel public records of these events. In fact, throughout the entire movement protest, Scholarism took tight photo records of protest activities, systematically organised them into albums, and uploaded them onto Facebook every day between 30 August and 8 September.Content Co-Creation for Counter-Hegemonic ExpressionsFrom a (neo-)Gramscian perspective, counter-hegemony is often embedded and embodied in music, novels, drama, movies, and so on (Boggs). An example of counter-hegemony in the traditional media is a documentary that questions the government’s involvement in a war (Cohen). Therefore, popular culture in the media may help foster counter-hegemony on the terrain of civil society in preparation for political change (Pratt). For Chinese communities in East Asia, pop music, for example, had played a significant role in organising patriotic feelings in mass protest events, such as the Tiananmen demonstrations of 1989 and the many subsequent protests in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and elsewhere against the violence of the Beijing government (Chow 153). During the occupation protest, Facebook was turned into an open and flexible discursive space, in which cutting-edge counter-hegemonic narratives were produced, distributed, and expressed. Scholarism and many individual activists adopted the social media platform to (co-)create activists’ discourses and knowledge in order to challenge the dominant political and cultural codes (Melucci). An example is a poster created by Scholarism, posted on its Facebook page on 4 September. The title message of this poster is: “This is not the government headquarters. This is our CIVIC SQUARE. Come and occupy!” This message represents a discursive intervention that seeks to “illuminate the limits of normative discourses of knowledge and power” (Lane 138). It did so by replacing the original, official name and meaning of the government headquarters as well as its authority with the counter-hegemonic idea of “civic square,” a term developed and coined by Scholarism during the occupation protest to represent the public space in front of the headquarters.Moreover, the Facebook page of Scholarism was by no means the only source of content out of which counter-hegemonic knowledge and discourses were produced. Conversely, most of the new media artefacts observed on the Facebook page of Scholarism were originally created by and posted on, and therefore re-posted and shared from, the Facebook pages of other individual or group users. They are in forms of text, picture, video, and the like that sought to undermine the legitimacy of the Hong Kong government, ridicule the rationale of the “Moral and National Education” curriculum, and discredit figures in the opposition.An example is a cartoon made by an individual user and re-posted on the Facebook page of Scholarism on 2 September, the day before schools restarted in Hong Kong after the summer break. This cartoon features a schoolboy in his school uniform, who is going to school with a bunch of identical locks tied to his head. The title message is: “School begins, keep your brain safe.” This cartoon was created to ridicule the rationale of the introduction of the “Moral and National Education” by “making visible the underlying and hidden relations of power on which the smooth operation of government repression depends” (Lane 136).Another new media artefact re-posted on the Facebook page of Scholarism was originally created by a well-known Hong Kong cartoon painter of a major local newspaper. This cartoon sought to humanise the student activists and to condemn the brutality of the Hong Kong government. It paints an imagined situation in which a public conversation between the Secretary for Education, Hak-kim Eddie Ng, and the three students on the hunger strike takes place. In this cartoon, Ng is cast as the wholesaler of the “Moral and National Education” curriculum. Holding a bottle of liquid in his hand, he says to the students: “This is the tears of the chief executive from last night. Kids, should you all go home now?”Thus, counter-hegemonic expressions did not flow unidirectionally from Scholarism to the society at large. The special role of Scholarism was indeed to curate and choreograph new media artefacts by employing social media modules such as re-posting and sharing user-generated content. In so doing, it facilitated the mobilisation of the occupation protest and instant collaboration, as it connected scattered activities, turned them into a collective, and branded it with a common identity, conviction, and/or purpose.ConclusionThis article has briefly looked at the case of a new media-savvy SMO in Hong Kong as an example of how activist groups can become political curators at large-scale protest events. In particular, it highlights the concepts of curation and choreography in explaining how emerging SNS-enabled affordances can be translated into concrete contentious activities. This article argues that, rather than simply producing and disseminating content on SNS platforms, SMOs today have learnt to actively construct stories about protest movements with social media modules such as (re-)posting edited pictures and sharing user-generated photos in order to mobilise effective political interventions and sustain a vibrant participatory culture.ReferencesBaym, Geoffrey, and Chirag Shah. “Circulating Struggle: The On-Line Flow of Environmental Advocacy Clips from the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.” Information Communication & Society 14.7 (2011): 1017–38. Bekkers, Victor, Rebecca Moody, and Arthur Edwards. “Micro-Mobilization, Social Media and Coping Strategies: Some Dutch Experiences.” Policy and Internet 3.4 (2011): 1–29. Bennett, W. Lance, Alexandra Segerberg, and Shawn Walker. “Organization in the Crowd: Peer Production in Large-Scale Networked Protests.” Information, Communication & Society 17.2 (2014): 232–60. Bimber, Bruce, Andrew J. Flanagin, and Cynthia Stohl. “Reconceptualizing Collective Action in the Contemporary Media Environment.” Communication Theory 15.4 (2005): 365–88. ———. Collective Action in Organizations. New York: Cambridge UP, 2012.Boggs, Carl. The Two Revolutions: Antonio Gramsci and the Dilemmas of Western Marxism. Boston, MA: South End P, 1984. Carty, Victoria, and Jake Onyett. “Protest, Cyberactivism and New Social Movements: The Reemergence of the Peace Movement Post 9/11.” Social Movement Studies 5.3 (2006): 229–49. Chow, Ray. “Between Colonizers: Hong Kong’s Postcolonial Self-Writing in the 1990s.” Diaspora 2.2 (1992): 151–70. Cohen, Theodore. Global Political Economy. New York: Longman, 2003. Fotopoulou, Aristea, and Nick Couldry. “Telling the Story of the Stories: Online Content Curation and Digital Engagement.” Information, Communication & Society 18.2 (2015): 235–49. Franks, Rachel. “Establishing an Emotional Connection: The Librarian as (Digital) Storyteller.” The Australian Library Journal 62.4 (2013): 285–94. Jasper, James M. The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movement. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1997. Lane, Jill. “Digital Zapatistas.” The Drama Review 47.2 (2003): 129–44. Melucci, Alberto. Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.Pratt, Nicola. “Bringing Politics Back in: Examining the Link between Globalization and Democratization.” Review of International Political Economy 11.2 (2004): 311–36. Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books, 2003. Shirky, Clay. Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age. London: Allen Lane, 2010. Touraine, Alain. Return of the Actor: Social Theory in Postindustrial Society. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1988.

In the summer of 1999, four ships carrying 599 Fujianese people arrived on the west coast of Canada. They survived a desperate and dangerous journey only for the Canadian Government to put them in prison. After numerous deportations, there are still about 40 of these people in Canadian prisons as of January 2001. They have been in jail for over a year and a half under mere suspicion of flight risk. About 24 people have been granted refugee status. Most people deported to China have been placed in Chinese prisons and fined. It is worth remembering that these migrants may have been undocumented but they are not "illegal" in that they have mobility rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes everyone's right to leave any country and to seek asylum. It can be argued that it is not the migrants who are illegal, but the unjust laws that criminalize their freedom of movement. In considering people's rights, we need to keep in mind not only the civil and political rights that the West tends to privilege, but equally important social and economic rights as well. As a local response to a global phenomenon, Direct Action Against Refugee Exploitation (DAARE) formed in Vancouver to support the rights of the Fujianese women, eleven of whom at the time of writing are still being held in the Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women (BCCW). In DAARE’s view, Immigration Canada's decision to detain all these people is based on a racialized group-profiling policy which violates basic human rights and ignores Canadian responsibility in the creation of the global economic and societal conditions which give rise to widespread migration. In light of the Canadian government's plans to implement even more punitive immigration legislation, DAARE endorses the Coalition for a Just Immigration and Refugee Policy's "Position Paper on Bill C31." They call for humanitarian review and release for the remaining Fujianese people. This review would include a few released refugee claimants who are still in Canada, children, women who were past victims of family planning, people facing religious persecution and, of course, those who are still in prison after 18 months and who have never been charged with any crime. Suspicion of flight risk is not a valid reason to incarcerate people for such a long time. Who Is a Migrant? The lines between "voluntary" and "forced" migration are no longer adequate to explain the complexities of population movements today. Motives for forced displacement include political, economic, social and environmental factors. This spectrum runs from the immediate threats to life, safety and freedom due to war or persecution, to situations where economic conditions make the prospects of survival marginal and non-existent. (Moussa 2000). Terms like "economic migrant" and "bogus refugee" have been used in the media to discredit migrants such as the Fujianese and to foster hostility against them. This scapegoating process oversimplifies the situation, for all refugees and all migrants are entitled to the basic respect due all human beings as enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. There can be multiple reasons for an individual to migrate—ranging from family reunification to economic pressures to personal survival; to fear of government corruption and of political persecution, to name just a few. The reduction of everything to merely the economic does not allow one to understand why migration is occurring and likely to increase in the future. Most immigrants to Canada could also be described as economic migrants. Conrad Black is an economic migrant. The privileging of rich migrants over poor ones romanticizes globalization as corporate progress and ignores the immense human suffering it entails for the majority of the world's population as the gap between the wealthy and the poor rapidly increases. Hundreds of years ago, when migrants came to this aboriginal territory we now call Canada, they came in order to survive—in short, they too were "economic migrants." Many of those migrants who came from Europe would not qualify to enter Canada today under its current immigration admissions guidelines. Indeed, over 50% of Canadians would not be able to independently immigrate to Canada given its current elitist restrictions. One of the major reasons for an increase in migration is the destruction of rural economies in Asia and elsewhere in the world. Millions of people have been displaced by changes in agriculture that separate people from the land. These waves of internal migration also result in the movement of peoples across national borders in order to survive. Chinese provinces such as Fujian and Guangdong, whose people have a long history of overseas travel, are particularly common sources of out-migration. In discussing migration, we need to be wary of how we can inadvertently reinforce the colonization of First Nations people unless we consciously work against that by actively supporting aboriginal self-determination. For example, some First Nations people have been accused of "smuggling" people across borders—this subjects them to the same process of criminalization which the migrants have experienced, and ignores the sovereign rights of First Nations people. We need ways of relating to one another which do not reenact domination, but which work in solidarity with First Nations' struggles. This requires an understanding of the ways in which racism, colonialism, classism, and other tactics through which "dividing and conquering" take place. For those of us who are first, second, third, fourth, fifth generation migrants to this land, our survival and liberation are intimately connected to that of aboriginal people. History Repeating Itself? The arrival of the Fujianese people met with a racist media hysteria reminiscent of earlier episodes of Canadian history. Front page newspaper headlines such as "Go Home" increased hostility against these people. In Victoria, people were offering to adopt the dog on one of the ships at the same time that they were calling to deport the Chinese. From the corporate media accounts of the situation, one would think that most Canadians did not care about the dangerous voyage these people had endured, a voyage during which two people from the second ship died. Accusations that people were trying to enter the country "illegally" overlooked how historically, the Chinese, like other people of colour, have had to find ways to compensate for racist and classist biases in Canada's immigration system. For example, from 1960 to 1973, Canada granted amnesty to over 12,000 "paper sons," that is, people who had immigrated under names other than their own. The granting of "legal" status to the "paper sons" who arrived before 1960 finally recognized that Canada's legislation had unfairly excluded Chinese people for decades. From 1923 to 1947, Canada's Chinese Exclusion Act had basically prevented Chinese people from entering this country. The xenophobic attitudes that gave rise to the Chinese Exclusion Act and the head tax occurred within a colonial context that privileged British migrants. Today, colonialism may no longer be as rhetorically attached to the British empire, but its patterns—particularly the globally inequitable distribution of wealth and resources—continue to accelerate through the mechanism of transnational corporations, for example. As Helene Moussa has pointed out, "the interconnections of globalisation with racist and colonialist ideology are only too clear when all evidence shows that globalisation '¼ legitimise[s] and sustain[s] an international system that tolerates an unbelievable divide not only between the North and the South but also inside them'" (2000). Moreover, according to the United Nations Development Programme, the income gap between people in the world's wealthiest nations and the poorest nations has shifted from 30:1 in 1960 to 60:1 in 1990 and to 74:1 in 1997. (Moussa 2000) As capital or electronic money moves across borders faster than ever before in what some have called the casino economy (Mander and Goldsmith), change and instability are rapidly increasing for the majority of the world's population. People are justifiably anxious about their well-being in the face of growing transnational corporate power; however, "protecting" national borders through enforcement and detention of displaced people is a form of reactive, violent, and often racist, nationalism which scapegoats the vulnerable without truly addressing the root causes of instability and migration. In short, reactive nationalism is ineffective in safe-guarding people's survival. Asserting solidarity with those who are most immediately displaced and impoverished by globalization is strategically a better way to work towards our common survival. Substantive freedom requires equitable economic relations; that is, fairly shared wealth. Canadian Response Abilities The Canadian government should take responsibility for its role in creating the conditions that displace people and force them to migrate within their countries and across borders. As a major sponsor of efforts to privatize economies and undertake environmentally devastating projects such as hydro-electric dams, Canada has played a significant role in the creation of an unemployed "floating population" in China which is estimated to reach 200 million people this year. Punitive tactics will not stop the movement of people, who migrate to survive. According to Peter Kwong, "The well-publicized Chinese government's market reforms have practically eliminated all labor laws, labour benefits and protections. In the "free enterprise zones" workers live virtually on the factory floor, laboring fourteen hours a day for a mere two dollars—that is, about 20 cents an hour" (136). As Sunera Thobani has phrased it, "What makes it alright for us to buy a t-shirt on the streets of Vancouver for $3, which was made in China, then stand up all outraged as Canadian citizens when the woman who made that t-shirt tries to come here and live with us on a basis of equality?" Canada should respond to the urgent situations which cause people to move—not only on the grounds upon which Convention refugees were defined in 1949 (race, religion, nationality, social group, political opinion) which continue to be valid—but also to strengthen Canada's system to include a contemporary understanding that all people have basic economic and environmental survival rights. Some migrants have lives that fit into the narrow definition of a UN Convention refugee and some may not. Those who do not fit this definition have nonetheless urgent needs that deserve attention. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has pointed out that there are at least 18 million people working in 124 export zones in China. A living wage in China is estimated to be 87 cents per hour. Canadians benefit from these conditions of cheap labour, yet when the producers of these goods come to our shores, we hypocritically disavow any relationship with them. Responsibility in this context need not refer so much to some stern sense of duty, obligation or altruism as to a full "response"—intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual—that such a situation provokes in relations between those who "benefit"—materially at least—from such a system and those who do not. References Anderson, Sarah, et al. Field Guide to the Global Economy. New York: New Press, 2000. Canadian Council of Refugees. "Migrant Smuggling and Trafficking in Persons." February 20, 2000. Canadian Woman Studies: Immigrant and Refugee Women. 19.3 (Fall 1999). Chin, Ko-lin. Smuggled Chinese. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999. Coalition for a Just Immigration and Refugee Policy. "Position Paper on Bill C31." 2000. Davis, Angela. The Angela Davis Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1998. Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, Foundation Against Trafficking in Women, and International Human Rights Law Group. "Human Rights Standards for the Treatment of Trafficked Persons." January 1999. Henry, Frances and Tator, Carol. Racist Discourses in Canada's English Print Media. Toronto: Canadian Foundation for Race Relations, 2000. Jameson, Fredric and Miyoshi, Masao, Eds. The Cultures of Globalization. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998. Kwong, Peter. Forbidden Workers. New York: New Press, 1997. Mander, Jerry and Goldsmith, Edward, Eds. The Case Against the Global Economy. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1996. Moussa, Helene. "The Interconnections of Globalisation and Migration with Racism and Colonialism: Tracing Complicity." 2000. ---. "Violence against Refugee Women: Gender Oppression, Canadian Policy, and the International Struggle for Human Rights." Resources for Feminist Research 26 (3-4). 1998 Migrant Forum statement (from Asia Pacific People's Assembly on APEC) 'Occasional Paper Migration: an economic and social analysis.' Pizarro, Gabriela Rodriguez. "Human Rights of Migrants." United Nations Report. Seabrook, Jeremy. "The Migrant in the Mirror." New Internationalist 327 (September 2000): 34-5. Sharma, Nandita. "The Real Snakeheads: Canadian government and corporations." Kinesis. October/November (1999): 11. Spivak, Gayatri. "Diasporas Old and New: Women in the Transnational World." Class Issues. Ed. Amitava Kumar. New York: New York University Press, 1997. States of Disarray: The Social Effects of Globalization. London: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UN RISD), 1995. Thobani, Sunera. "The Creation of a ‘Crisis’." Kinesis October/November (1999): 12-13. Whores, Maids and Wives: Making Links. Proceedings of the North American Regional Consultative Forum on Trafficking in Women, 1997.

Introduction The highly contagious COVID-19 virus has presented particularly difficult public policy challenges. The relatively late emergence of an effective treatments and vaccines, the structural stresses on health care systems, the lockdowns and the economic dislocations, the evident structural inequalities in effected societies, as well as the difficulty of prevention have tested social and political cohesion. Moreover, the intrusive nature of many prophylactic measures have led to individual liberty and human rights concerns. As noted by the Victorian (Australia) Ombudsman Report on the COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne, we may be tempted, during a crisis, to view human rights as expendable in the pursuit of saving human lives. This thinking can lead to dangerous territory. It is not unlawful to curtail fundamental rights and freedoms when there are compelling reasons for doing so; human rights are inherently and inseparably a consideration of human lives. (5) These difficulties have raised issues about the importance of social or community capital in fighting the pandemic. This article discusses the impacts of social and community capital and other factors on the governmental efforts to combat the spread of infectious disease through the maintenance of social distancing and household ‘bubbles’. It argues that the beneficial effects of social and community capital towards fighting the pandemic, such as mutual respect and empathy, which underpins such public health measures as social distancing, the use of personal protective equipment, and lockdowns in the USA, have been undermined as preventive measures because they have been transmogrified to become a salient aspect of the “culture wars” (Peters). In contrast, states that have relatively lower social capital such a China have been able to more effectively arrest transmission of the disease because the government was been able to generate and personify a nationalist response to the virus and thus generate a more robust social consensus regarding the efforts to combat the disease. Social Capital and Culture Wars The response to COVID-19 required individuals, families, communities, and other types of groups to refrain from extensive interaction – to stay in their bubble. In these situations, especially given the asymptomatic nature of many COVID-19 infections and the serious imposition lockdowns and social distancing and isolation, the temptation for individuals to breach public health rules in high. From the perspective of policymakers, the response to fighting COVID-19 is a collective action problem. In studying collective action problems, scholars have paid much attention on the role of social and community capital (Ostrom and Ahn 17-35). Ostrom and Ahn comment that social capital “provides a synthesizing approach to how cultural, social, and institutional aspects of communities of various sizes jointly affect their capacity of dealing with collective-action problems” (24). Social capital is regarded as an evolving social type of cultural trait (Fukuyama; Guiso et al.). Adger argues that social capital “captures the nature of social relations” and “provides an explanation for how individuals use their relationships to other actors in societies for their own and for the collective good” (387). The most frequently used definition of social capital is the one proffered by Putnam who regards it as “features of social organization, such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (Putnam, “Bowling Alone” 65). All these studies suggest that social and community capital has at least two elements: “objective associations” and subjective ties among individuals. Objective associations, or social networks, refer to both formal and informal associations that are formed and engaged in on a voluntary basis by individuals and social groups. Subjective ties or norms, on the other hand, primarily stand for trust and reciprocity (Paxton). High levels of social capital have generally been associated with democratic politics and civil societies whose institutional performance benefits from the coordinated actions and civic culture that has been facilitated by high levels of social capital (Putnam, Democracy 167-9). Alternatively, a “good and fair” state and impartial institutions are important factors in generating and preserving high levels of social capital (Offe 42-87). Yet social capital is not limited to democratic civil societies and research is mixed on whether rising social capital manifests itself in a more vigorous civil society that in turn leads to democratising impulses. Castillo argues that various trust levels for institutions that reinforce submission, hierarchy, and cultural conservatism can be high in authoritarian governments, indicating that high levels of social capital do not necessarily lead to democratic civic societies (Castillo et al.). Roßteutscher concludes after a survey of social capita indicators in authoritarian states that social capital has little effect of democratisation and may in fact reinforce authoritarian rule: in nondemocratic contexts, however, it appears to throw a spanner in the works of democratization. Trust increases the stability of nondemocratic leaderships by generating popular support, by suppressing regime threatening forms of protest activity, and by nourishing undemocratic ideals concerning governance (752). In China, there has been ongoing debate concerning the presence of civil society and the level of social capital found across Chinese society. If one defines civil society as an intermediate associational realm between the state and the family, populated by autonomous organisations which are separate from the state that are formed voluntarily by members of society to protect or extend their interests or values, it is arguable that the PRC had a significant civil society or social capital in the first few decades after its establishment (White). However, most scholars agree that nascent civil society as well as a more salient social and community capital has emerged in China’s reform era. This was evident after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, where the government welcomed community organising and community-driven donation campaigns for a limited period of time, giving the NGO sector and bottom-up social activism a boost, as evidenced in various policy areas such as disaster relief and rural community development (F. Wu 126; Xu 9). Nevertheless, the CCP and the Chinese state have been effective in maintaining significant control over civil society and autonomous groups without attempting to completely eliminate their autonomy or existence. The dramatic economic and social changes that have occurred since the 1978 Opening have unsurprisingly engendered numerous conflicts across the society. In response, the CCP and State have adjusted political economic policies to meet the changing demands of workers, migrants, the unemployed, minorities, farmers, local artisans, entrepreneurs, and the growing middle class. Often the demands arising from these groups have resulted in policy changes, including compensation. In other circumstances, where these groups remain dissatisfied, the government will tolerate them (ignore them but allow them to continue in the advocacy), or, when the need arises, supress the disaffected groups (F. Wu 2). At the same time, social organisations and other groups in civil society have often “refrained from open and broad contestation against the regime”, thereby gaining the space and autonomy to achieve the objectives (F. Wu 2). Studies of Chinese social or community capital suggest that a form of modern social capital has gradually emerged as Chinese society has become increasingly modernised and liberalised (despite being non-democratic), and that this social capital has begun to play an important role in shaping social and economic lives at the local level. However, this more modern form of social capital, arising from developmental and social changes, competes with traditional social values and social capital, which stresses parochial and particularistic feelings among known individuals while modern social capital emphasises general trust and reciprocal feelings among both known and unknown individuals. The objective element of these traditional values are those government-sanctioned, formal mass organisations such as Communist Youth and the All-China Federation of Women's Associations, where members are obliged to obey the organisation leadership. The predominant subjective values are parochial and particularistic feelings among individuals who know one another, such as guanxi and zongzu (Chen and Lu, 426). The concept of social capital emphasises that the underlying cooperative values found in individuals and groups within a culture are an important factor in solving collective problems. In contrast, the notion of “culture war” focusses on those values and differences that divide social and cultural groups. Barry defines culture wars as increases in volatility, expansion of polarisation, and conflict between those who are passionate about religiously motivated politics, traditional morality, and anti-intellectualism, and…those who embrace progressive politics, cultural openness, and scientific and modernist orientations. (90) The contemporary culture wars across the world manifest opposition by various groups in society who hold divergent worldviews and ideological positions. Proponents of culture war understand various issues as part of a broader set of religious, political, and moral/normative positions invoked in opposition to “elite”, “liberal”, or “left” ideologies. Within this Manichean universe opposition to such issues as climate change, Black Lives Matter, same sex rights, prison reform, gun control, and immigration becomes framed in binary terms, and infused with a moral sensibility (Chapman 8-10). In many disputes, the culture war often devolves into an epistemological dispute about the efficacy of scientific knowledge and authority, or a dispute between “practical” and theoretical knowledge. In this environment, even facts can become partisan narratives. For these “cultural” disputes are often how electoral prospects (generally right-wing) are advanced; “not through policies or promises of a better life, but by fostering a sense of threat, a fantasy that something profoundly pure … is constantly at risk of extinction” (Malik). This “zero-sum” social and policy environment that makes it difficult to compromise and has serious consequences for social stability or government policy, especially in a liberal democratic society. Of course, from the perspective of cultural materialism such a reductionist approach to culture and political and social values is not unexpected. “Culture” is one of the many arenas in which dominant social groups seek to express and reproduce their interests and preferences. “Culture” from this sense is “material” and is ultimately connected to the distribution of power, wealth, and resources in society. As such, the various policy areas that are understood as part of the “culture wars” are another domain where various dominant and subordinate groups and interests engaged in conflict express their values and goals. Yet it is unexpected that despite the pervasiveness of information available to individuals the pool of information consumed by individuals who view the “culture wars” as a touchstone for political behaviour and a narrative to categorise events and facts is relatively closed. This lack of balance has been magnified by social media algorithms, conspiracy-laced talk radio, and a media ecosystem that frames and discusses issues in a manner that elides into an easily understood “culture war” narrative. From this perspective, the groups (generally right-wing or traditionalist) exist within an information bubble that reinforces political, social, and cultural predilections. American and Chinese Reponses to COVID-19 The COVID-19 pandemic first broke out in Wuhan in December 2019. Initially unprepared and unwilling to accept the seriousness of the infection, the Chinese government regrouped from early mistakes and essentially controlled transmission in about three months. This positive outcome has been messaged as an exposition of the superiority of the Chinese governmental system and society both domestically and internationally; a positive, even heroic performance that evidences the populist credentials of the Chinese political leadership and demonstrates national excellence. The recently published White Paper entitled “Fighting COVID-19: China in Action” also summarises China’s “strategic achievement” in the simple language of numbers: in a month, the rising spread was contained; in two months, the daily case increase fell to single digits; and in three months, a “decisive victory” was secured in Wuhan City and Hubei Province (Xinhua). This clear articulation of the positive results has rallied political support. Indeed, a recent survey shows that 89 percent of citizens are satisfied with the government’s information dissemination during the pandemic (C Wu). As part of the effort, the government extensively promoted the provision of “political goods”, such as law and order, national unity and pride, and shared values. For example, severe publishments were introduced for violence against medical professionals and police, producing and selling counterfeit medications, raising commodity prices, spreading ‘rumours’, and being uncooperative with quarantine measures (Xu). Additionally, as an extension the popular anti-corruption campaign, many local political leaders were disciplined or received criminal charges for inappropriate behaviour, abuse of power, and corruption during the pandemic (People.cn, 2 Feb. 2020). Chinese state media also described fighting the virus as a global “competition”. In this competition a nation’s “material power” as well as “mental strength”, that calls for the highest level of nation unity and patriotism, is put to the test. This discourse recalled the global competition in light of the national mythology related to the formation of Chinese nation, the historical “hardship”, and the “heroic Chinese people” (People.cn, 7 Apr. 2020). Moreover, as the threat of infection receded, it was emphasised that China “won this competition” and the Chinese people have demonstrated the “great spirit of China” to the world: a result built upon the “heroism of the whole Party, Army, and Chinese people from all ethnic groups” (People.cn, 7 Apr. 2020). In contrast to the Chinese approach of emphasising national public goods as a justification for fighting the virus, the U.S. Trump Administration used nationalism, deflection, and “culture war” discourse to undermine health responses — an unprecedented response in American public health policy. The seriousness of the disease as well as the statistical evidence of its course through the American population was disputed. The President and various supporters raged against the COVID-19 “hoax”, social distancing, and lockdowns, disparaged public health institutions and advice, and encouraged protesters to “liberate” locked-down states (Russonello). “Our federal overlords say ‘no singing’ and ‘no shouting’ on Thanksgiving”, Representative Paul Gosar, a Republican of Arizona, wrote as he retweeted a Centers for Disease Control list of Thanksgiving safety tips (Weiner). People were encouraged, by way of the White House and Republican leadership, to ignore health regulations and not to comply with social distancing measures and the wearing of masks (Tracy). This encouragement led to threats against proponents of face masks such as Dr Anthony Fauci, one of the nation’s foremost experts on infectious diseases, who required bodyguards because of the many threats on his life. Fauci’s critics — including President Trump — countered Fauci’s promotion of mask wearing by stating accusingly that he once said mask-wearing was not necessary for ordinary people (Kelly). Conspiracy theories as to the safety of vaccinations also grew across the course of the year. As the 2020 election approached, the Administration ramped up efforts to downplay the serious of the virus by identifying it with “the media” and illegitimate “partisan” efforts to undermine the Trump presidency. It also ramped up its criticism of China as the source of the infection. This political self-centeredness undermined state and federal efforts to slow transmission (Shear et al.). At the same time, Trump chided health officials for moving too slowly on vaccine approvals, repeated charges that high infection rates were due to increased testing, and argued that COVID-19 deaths were exaggerated by medical providers for political and financial reasons. These claims were amplified by various conservative media personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham of Fox News. The result of this “COVID-19 Denialism” and the alternative narrative of COVID-19 policy told through the lens of culture war has resulted in the United States having the highest number of COVID-19 cases, and the highest number of COVID-19 deaths. At the same time, the underlying social consensus and social capital that have historically assisted in generating positive public health outcomes has been significantly eroded. According to the Pew Research Center, the share of U.S. adults who say public health officials such as those at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are doing an excellent or good job responding to the outbreak decreased from 79% in March to 63% in August, with an especially sharp decrease among Republicans (Pew Research Center 2020). Social Capital and COVID-19 From the perspective of social or community capital, it could be expected that the American response to the Pandemic would be more effective than the Chinese response. Historically, the United States has had high levels of social capital, a highly developed public health system, and strong governmental capacity. In contrast, China has a relatively high level of governmental and public health capacity, but the level of social capital has been lower and there is a significant presence of traditional values which emphasise parochial and particularistic values. Moreover, the antecedent institutions of social capital, such as weak and inefficient formal institutions (Batjargal et al.), environmental turbulence and resource scarcity along with the transactional nature of guanxi (gift-giving and information exchange and relationship dependence) militate against finding a more effective social and community response to the public health emergency. Yet China’s response has been significantly more successful than the Unites States’. Paradoxically, the American response under the Trump Administration and the Chinese response both relied on an externalisation of the both the threat and the justifications for their particular response. In the American case, President Trump, while downplaying the seriousness of the virus, consistently called it the “China virus” in an effort to deflect responsibly as well as a means to avert attention away from the public health impacts. As recently as 3 January 2021, Trump tweeted that the number of “China Virus” cases and deaths in the U.S. were “far exaggerated”, while critically citing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's methodology: “When in doubt, call it COVID-19. Fake News!” (Bacon). The Chinese Government, meanwhile, has pursued a more aggressive foreign policy across the South China Sea, on the frontier in the Indian sub-continent, and against states such as Australia who have criticised the initial Chinese response to COVID-19. To this international criticism, the government reiterated its sovereign rights and emphasised its “victimhood” in the face of “anti-China” foreign forces. Chinese state media also highlighted China as “victim” of the coronavirus, but also as a target of Western “political manoeuvres” when investigating the beginning stages of the pandemic. The major difference, however, is that public health policy in the United States was superimposed on other more fundamental political and cultural cleavages, and part of this externalisation process included the assignation of “otherness” and demonisation of internal political opponents or characterising political opponents as bent on destroying the United States. This assignation of “otherness” to various internal groups is a crucial element in the culture wars. While this may have been inevitable given the increasingly frayed nature of American society post-2008, such a characterisation has been activity pushed by local, state, and national leadership in the Republican Party and the Trump Administration (Vogel et al.). In such circumstances, minimising health risks and highlighting civil rights concerns due to public health measures, along with assigning blame to the democratic opposition and foreign states such as China, can have a major impact of public health responses. The result has been that social trust beyond the bubble of one’s immediate circle or those who share similar beliefs is seriously compromised — and the collective action problem presented by COVID-19 remains unsolved. Daniel Aldrich’s study of disasters in Japan, India, and US demonstrates that pre-existing high levels of social capital would lead to stronger resilience and better recovery (Aldrich). Social capital helps coordinate resources and facilitate the reconstruction collectively and therefore would lead to better recovery (Alesch et al.). Yet there has not been much research on how the pool of social capital first came about and how a disaster may affect the creation and store of social capital. Rebecca Solnit has examined five major disasters and describes that after these events, survivors would reach out and work together to confront the challenges they face, therefore increasing the social capital in the community (Solnit). However, there are studies that have concluded that major disasters can damage the social fabric in local communities (Peacock et al.). The COVID-19 epidemic does not have the intensity and suddenness of other disasters but has had significant knock-on effects in increasing or decreasing social capital, depending on the institutional and social responses to the pandemic. In China, it appears that the positive social capital effects have been partially subsumed into a more generalised patriotic or nationalist affirmation of the government’s policy response. Unlike civil society responses to earlier crises, such as the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, there is less evidence of widespread community organisation and response to combat the epidemic at its initial stages. This suggests better institutional responses to the crisis by the government, but also a high degree of porosity between civil society and a national “imagined community” represented by the national state. The result has been an increased legitimacy for the Chinese government. Alternatively, in the United States the transformation of COVID-19 public health policy into a culture war issue has seriously impeded efforts to combat the epidemic in the short term by undermining the social consensus and social capital necessary to fight such a pandemic. Trust in American institutions is historically low, and President Trump’s untrue contention that President Biden’s election was due to “fraud” has further undermined the legitimacy of the American government, as evidenced by the attacks directed at Congress in the U.S. capital on 6 January 2021. As such, the lingering effects the pandemic will have on social, economic, and political institutions will likely reinforce the deep cultural and political cleavages and weaken interpersonal networks in American society. Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated global public health and impacted deeply on the world economy. Unsurprisingly, given the serious economic, social, and political consequences, different government responses have been highly politicised. Various quarantine and infection case tracking methods have caused concern over state power intruding into private spheres. The usage of face masks, social distancing rules, and intra-state travel restrictions have aroused passionate debate over public health restrictions, individual liberty, and human rights. Yet underlying public health responses grounded in higher levels of social capital enhance the effectiveness of public health measures. In China, a country that has generally been associated with lower social capital, it is likely that the relatively strong policy response to COVID-19 will both enhance feelings of nationalism and Chinese exceptionalism and help create and increase the store of social capital. 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