As we write, the world is being shaken by a new wave of violence in the Middle East. Initially involving Palestine and Israel, and now extending to Lebanon, the conflict is further intensifying the growing sense of dystopia in the post-pandemic era.

Also, for this conflict, like the one triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which is going through new, but certainly no less dramatic, phases, we are faced with dynamics of the transglobal politics of sensitivities, in which the emotions and sufferings of people involved are constructed and manipulated. Military news, strategies and geopolitical analyses of the present and future cannot be separated, under penalty of losing the sense of reality, from the emotions that the individual stories of the people involved in conflicts arouse in the world, both among citizens and among the people who have, in various capacities and with different effects, a role of responsibility with respect to the progress of conflicts.

This context underlines the importance of the topic covered in this book, which aims to understand and address emotional dynamics and human experiences in global contexts, promoting an inclusive and supportive vision of the world.

In an era marked by divisions and conflicts, the politics of transglobal sensitivities invites us to reflect on our relationships with the world and with others, pushing us to overcome divisions and build bonds based on mutual understanding and compassion. Through an empathetic and supportive approach, we can aspire to build a more fair, equitable and peaceful world in which emotions are not only a tool of commercialisation and colonisation but also a driver of our shared humanity.

Reflection on the State of the Politics of Sensitivities on a Transglobal Scale

Through an in-depth analysis of the issues of digitality, work, narratives, young people, social policies and forms of collective bans, the complexity of the politics of sensibilities on a planetary scale clearly emerges. For example, digitalisation has radically transformed our emotional experience, influencing our perception of the world and our social interactions. The politics of sensitivities also reflect the geopolitics of power, with tangible consequences for the daily lives of people around the world.

A Modern Puzzlement

There is no good human life outside of a state, and the good state enables us to live well together. Your personal good and the common good of your political community are constitutive of one another and, in designing our institutions, we also give ourselves an identity and, in that sense, constitute ourselves. So says “constitutivism,” the theory of government developed in this book.

Constitutivism is a new theory built on ancient foundations. While contemporary philosophical liberals wonder, with Margaret Thatcher, “Who is society?” and whether there even is such a thing, Aristotle defined human beings as political animals. We are creatures, he thought, that can only be happy as members of a political community.

Between Aristotle and Thatcher, a number of world-historic events and intellectual developments took place, one of which is commonly referred to as “Enlightenment.” Philosophers like Thomas Hobbes began to conceive of practical rationality as the ability to maximize one's personal utility. Applied in political theory, this idea results in a picture of the state as a joint business venture or, rather, an insurance scheme. To form a political community now means to pool resources with others so as to fund an institutional infrastructure, for security in particular, that enables each paying member to pursue their private happiness within this realm.

To adopt the insurance picture effectively means to reject the very idea of a political community. One insurant may have nothing in common with the next, and they certainly don't have a common good. Each pursues their personal good, having chosen to do so as part of a collective scheme. More recent liberal theorists, such as John Rawls, may postulate more extensive social obligations, but the liberal picture of rationality, hence personhood and hence the state, did not change in four hundred years.

Aristotle and most other ancient authors had a very different picture. He characterizes the state as physei proteron, that is, “prior in nature” or first in the order of things, which means that the state precedes the individual human being. Not chronologically, of course; his is a claim about essence.

The inhabitants of Pukhtunkhwa, the Pukhtuns/Pashtuns, also called ‘Afghans’ and ‘Pathans’ by Western historians (Caroe, 1957) are traditionalist people, who follow their centuries-old customs and traditions. They are famous for refusing to be dominated by foreign powers. This might be one of the reasons why the British imperialists intervened very little in Pukhtunkhwa and kept it as ‘a land without law’ till 1901 (Rittenberg, 1988). However, in 1932 the province was given a status equal to the other provinces of British India. The Pukhtuns were divided first by the Durand Line (an international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan).

The British acknowledged the importance of the territory, as whoever held this strategic area could easily challenge British imperial authority (Kureshy, 1991). Therefore, they implemented a policy of ‘divide and rule’ that allowed them to have more control over the freedom-loving Pukhtuns. Furthermore, to strengthen their hold over the area, the Pukhtuns were divided into ‘Settled Districts,’ ‘Tribal Areas’ and ‘Princely States’.

According to Johnson and Mason (2008: 53),

The British wanted to suppress the freedom-loving Pukhtuns, and therefore they launched this rigorous campaign and deliberately kept them uneducated. They intended to move forward towards Russia without the Pukhtun belt disrupting them, and they wanted to justify to the rest of the world that their policy of humiliating innocent Pukhtuns was within their ‘divine right’ ( Johnson and Mason (2008); for more details, see Rome, 2008).

For many centuries, Pukhtunkhwa has been a place of conflict; the Pukhtun fought many battles against invaders who approached the country through the Khyber Pass. Women were involved in these wars, and it appears that women suffered the most as a result of the wars. This is due to the norm that a family's honour is linked with the chastity of the women of that family. As a consequence of this norm, Pukhtuns were and are overprotective towards their women.

This book is based on my two research studies conducted in my native province, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (hereafter Pukhtunkhwa), Pakistan. Both studies deal with women's struggle for empowerment and emancipation in the field of education in traditionalist Pukhtun society. The studies found that, given the prevailing patriarchal culture, Pukhtun women consider education a means of women's liberation and a tool of women empowerment. Higher education affords Pukhtun women a unique position in a male-dominated society. While higher education is accessible only to those who belong to the elite and upper socio-economic strata, women also face problems due to the particularly traditional mindset of the Pukhtuns. In the province, culture dominates the people's decision-making rather than the original teachings of Islam. A dominant argument in this book is that the strong roots of patriarchy reinforced religious misinterpretation that ‘culturalised’ Islam instead of Islamising the culture.

In Pukhtunkhwa, co-education and the institution of purdah (veiling and segregation) are defined in cultural terms despite being couched in religious terminology. This has further marginalised women's access to higher education. Both studies found that the patriarchal culture present in the region not only serves as a barrier preventing women from accessing higher education but also has provided a fertile ground for the Taliban's efforts to completely ban women's education in Swat Valley in the name of their extremist version of Islam. However, the Taliban's plans in the education sector have failed to fully materialise. The book argues that patriarchy and militarisation have been used as tools of cultural governance of identity and maintenance of gender stratification (Sjoberg et al., 2010). Thus, the main argument in the first story evolved around gender dynamics and women's epistemology under liberal, radical Marxist/socialist and Islamic feminism; and structured-functionalism/functionalism and feminist peace and conflict theories of women security in the second one. All these feminist approaches are concerned with unequal opportunities in higher education that challenge the propagation of male experience and knowledge. For instance, Marxists/socialists struggled for equal power relations for both genders in the Pukhtun society. At the same time, my studies rejected the liberal feminists’ stance to remove inequality by political, social and economic movement under the state law because law cannot bring equality in Pakistan in general and in the Pukhtun society in particular.

This book examines what is the fundamental social prohibition, the incest taboo hovering over Colette's writing. I am using the term “incest” to refer to sexual relations and/or desires between not only biological parents and children (incestuous) but also between individuals who function as parent and child in their principal interactions (incestual). Her fiction shows how women's relationships often emerge from incestuous or incestual longings and reproduce parent–child experiences. She explores how to cope with the serious problems that develop as they confront the social norms inhibiting such relations and blocking their aspirations.

The incest taboo is a contradictory concept in that it enables the existence of society while at the same time prohibiting certain forms of social behavior. The research on the topic is complex and often focuses on how the prohibition, which exists virtually everywhere and at all times, came about. Scholars consider the degree to which it is based in human biology, citing the fact that animals do not often mate with their relatives. They have also done research on the cultural roots of the taboo, using evidence from many times and places to show that “the prohibition was not simply negative: it forced men to marry outside of their clan and thus to forge social relations with the outside.” Claude Lévi-Strauss in his The Elementary Structures of Kinship is the prominent proponent of this theory.

While Colette does not as far as I know discuss the emergence of the taboo, this study of the prohibition in her work and films dealing with it leads to a fuller understanding of the prohibition and the question of how it arose. Sigmund Freud's elaboration of the myth in Totem and Taboo that “primordial sons killed their father in order to possess their mother,” suffered terrible guilt as a result and thus instituted the prohibition is by no means documented truth. The myth does, however, reveal the psychological roots of the taboo to the degree that the story focuses on guilt, as do Colette's novels. Thus, this examination of her writing as well as the films dealing with it helps to understand the prohibition and its emergence including the way incest changes and deepens because of her work.

According to the World Health Organization (2022), the health priorities that nations around the world should explore are children and women's health, environmental pollution, material, nutrition, and venerable diseases. Strides were made in increasing life expectancy and reducing some of the common killers associated with child and maternal mortality. Although, many African countries have made more efforts over the past three decades to fully eradicate a wide range of diseases and address many different persistent and emerging health issues. There have been incremental challenges all over the African continent in appropriating sufficient funding to their health systems, improved sanitation, and hygiene, as well as increasing access to physicians and wellequipped healthcare institutions to save the lives of millions. Despite the fact it has been argued that no government, either local, state, or national, can afford to ignore the health needs of their citizens. How should the government in African countries regulate their health system, or what should they choose to let the private sector or market coordinate the system? Transforming Healthcare in Africa: A Comparative Analysis brings together many of Sub-Saharan African leading scholars to address these questions. The book examines the key players in the health system game in many African countries. It explores the regulatory regimes that impact the health systems, such as the Ministry of Health. It also provides a few case studies of the relationship between government, the environment, and their citizens. Apart from filling the gap in the healthcare policy in Africa literature, the authors also seek to examine the impacts of weak health policies and the inability to effectively formulate solid initiatives for capacity building that could lead to enhanced healthcare for all their citizens.

The findings presented in this book will be especially useful to policymakers, public administrators, public policy analysts, readers, researchers, graduate and undergraduate studies in health administration, nurses, doctors, nonprofit, NGOs, development, and public policy disciplines. It examines nature of the healthcare system, expansion of health regulation, the privatization of health corporations, the government, and the citizens’ perception of the quality of health services, and access to health institutions, reforming government regulation, and change in citizens lifestyle behaviors and use of examples and embedded content to help students and readers better appreciate the dynamics changes in the healthcare delivery system in the world.

Introduction

This chapter examines health policy and challenges in the People's Democratic Republic of Burkina Faso. It argues that despite the substantial progress in health delivery that has taken place in the country in the past three decades, the nation is confronted with major barriers to expanding healthcare coverage to all its citizens as defined by the sustainable development goal (section 6). The chapter discusses various aspects of communicable and non-communicable diseases as well as shortage of health workers in Burkina Faso. It also examines the challenges of morbidity for children, maternal mortality for pregnant women, and sanitation and water challenges in Burkina Faso. The goal of this chapter is to fill the gap in the literature, by providing an extensive discussion of health policy successes and challenges in Burkina Faso. The nature of health policy implementation in the country reveals that there has not been political will among previous and current leaders of Burkina Faso on how to effectively improve healthcare delivery in both the rural and urban regions in the country. Therefore, it is paramount that all stakeholders in the country must recognize the major health system challenges, and effective vibrant solutions on how to solve the health disparity and lack of accessibility problems. This is because while many low-income people in the rural and congested urban regions of Burkina Faso do not have access to affordable healthcare, there continues to be tremendous growth in the population of the country. In addition, high growth rate of consumption, inferior quality of life, and lack of access to improved sanitation, and safe water also constitute mechanisms for the spread of communicable diseases. These predicaments could be regarded as a time bomb for a major health disaster in Burkina Faso in the near future. The chapter provides some health policy recommendations on how to address these healthcare delivery problems in Burkina Faso.

Brief History

The People's Republic of Burkina Faso is a French-speaking country in sub-Sahara Africa. The nation was formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta until 1984 when it was changed to Burkina Faso. The nation achieved its independence from France in 1960.

The Russian spirit when analyzed gives an answer to the second question, which takes the form of two questions: Will Russia make a separate peace, and is the German influence strong?

The Russian spirit is a little incoherent. To define it is difficult, just as it is difficult to define the power of Russia's sleeping resources. It is, like all things in Russia, a thing of contradiction. But Russia's spirit realizes Russia's resources, and Russia's own subconscious mind sees Russia more clearly than the outer world can see her. “For instance, when the Central Powers last fall drove Russia's army out of a vast territory the outer world felt that Russia had met a defeat which had shaken the Russian Empire,” said Paul Miliukov to me. “The empire was not shaken. There was depression. Losses had been great. But this war is not the Russo-Japanese War. The people in the last war were unmoved; the war was far away in Russia's back yard. This war is another affair; it is on the front porch.”

The depression had a rebound; Russia's spirit surged back. And a part of its surging back is due to the fact that the Russian Empire is so great in extent, so rich in natural resources, and so well provided with endless hordes of men able to bear arms that it is like a great resilient lump. It may yield to pressure, as it yielded to Napoleon and as it yielded in 1915 to the Austro-German advance which swallowed Warsaw. But the lump retains its resiliency; it has a character of persistent expulsion. It may not be difficult to stick a thumb into Russia, but it is tiresome trying to keep it there. The lump is irritating with its resiliency. It is absurdly complacent!

For the outsider to believe that Russia must be depressed is natural. The financial situation is not pleasant. The ruble's value has slid down from about 50 cents to less than 30 cents. No one sees any metal money. The Government printing presses turn out postage stamps to provide the country with small change; these stamps do not stick to the fingers, for there is no mucilage on their backs.

From childhood Maxim had felt the presence of some mysterious authority over his destiny. Somewhere there was a government. Its arm was long; its grasp was strong; its power was great. If it now reached out for Maxim at a time when the harvest was just beginning, and, indeed, at the time when he was making plans to marry Vera, the niece of old Vladimir, there was nothing to be done about it. So it is in Russia. But also there is an astonishing self-respect for the individual in Russia; so strong is it that in many quarters parents and school-teachers would not think of corporal punishment. Therefore Maxim looked at the recruiter, who was old enough to be his father, and said insolently: “You make a good soldier.” The other looked at Maxim's clear skin and eyes, at his flaxen hair, and at the straight, powerful body of the young giant. “So do you,” he said indulgently. “And when you are a soldier you will learn something about your country. When soldiers come back from wars they are the wisest men in their villages. And they can talk of things that no one can print in newspapers.”

Maxim was glad to hear it. He put a map of Russia on the wall and made the soldier draw a line upon it to show his old father, bent by husbandry, and his old mother, withered by housewifery and hoeing cabbages, where the fighting was going on. “Warsaw has fallen,” said the soldier. “I know. I can read,” replied Maxim. “If the people would pray more, we would get it back again.”

His mother's knotted fingers clung to his sleeve, and her thin, dry lips were shut tight. Vera cried a little and allowed herself the torture of memories of spring days when they had danced together outdoors on the green behind the communal steam bathhouse. So Maxim left his village with his young, strong body and his good, untrained mind and a woolen blouse, a woolen suit, and a pair of greased boots; with him he took all that he had.

Introduction

In our endeavour to comprehend the intricacies associated with living and working in 4.0 societies (Scribano and Lisdero 2019), this chapter delves into ethnographic research. Harnessing the potent reflexive tool of the visual (Harper 2002), an image from our field diary serves to orient readers within the challenging context that we aim to explore here:

The image, along with its accompanying message on the social network Twitter, evokes a distinct context – a framework of situated social practices – that compels us to scrutinise various dimensions closely.

Firstly, the image underscores social conflict. This is articulated through an action undertaken by a collective of riders, who decry the precariousness of living and working conditions following the decree in Argentina imposing lockdown measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. This social media action serves as an opportunity to direct our gaze towards social practices that may have eluded our attention. In this sense, the visibility of the conflict enables us to observe underlying social processes in a unique manner.

The second crucial aspect pertains to the recent transformation within the realm of labour. The image underscores the undeniable reliance of our cities on human labour to sustain their current functionality. Contrary to theories proclaiming the ‘end of work’ or diminishing the body's role as the foundation of productive processes in new technologies, the image eloquently portrays that work maintains a central position in our societies. Particularly in societies like ours, situated in the Global South, a significant portion of those engaged in labour do so under conditions that starkly contrast with the traditional image of the salaried worker. Furthermore, it draws attention to the latest developments in the ‘world of work’, especially those stemming from the integration of digital mediums. In essence, the designation of riders’ activity as ‘essential’ in Argentina – a label enabling mobility amidst isolation – vividly illustrates the centrality of the body and its vital energies in comprehending the production processes of social life and the transformations within 4.0 societies.

The War of Europe is bringing us to a test of our international sense.

We must begin to apply international sense to our diplomacy; but we must also begin to apply it to our business.

We need just now all the international sense we can summon; we need it to grasp the extraordinary opportunities which the war will develop.

Of all these extraordinary opportunities to give the best of us, and receive value in return, none will be greater than that offered by Russia.

“But you Americans have no international sense,” said a Scotchman in Petrograd to me. He has been sent out from England since the beginning of the war to make studies of future commercial opportunities in Russia, and he has worked so well his way into the confidence of official Russia that he is now an employee of the Russian Government in the work of collecting and arranging confidential economic statistics - almost a secret-service agent of Commerce.

He thrust his hands into his pockets and stared out the window at the regiments of soldiers drilling on the public square beneath the gray skies. He went on: “I wonder whether you Americans will ever develop that sense. You receive more immigrants than any other nation, but you know nothing of the hearts and souls of the lands from which they come. The English are stubborn enough in their self-satisfied content with their own manners and language and customs, but they are skilled inter-nationalists compared with you Yankees. And this is really your era. You can make more and better goods for the world markets - and for Russia - than any other nation in the world. Germany had the trade, but lost it. The rest of us are crippled. Russia will bound forward after this war. She is the one country needing development - almost a virgin field. But whatever you may be at home, in world salesmanship you are terrible duffers. Russia? My dear fellow, Russia is the Biggest Possibility in the World. But you won't see it. You Americans have no international intellect.”

Have we?

Is psychoanalysis too heavy for the alphabet that Colette printed on the very flesh of the world? Is this scholarly terminology too harsh for her “subtle senses,” which she transforms into a “word greater than the object”? Maybe this therapy is useless for the craft of her writing. It doesn't claim to “think” but only to follow a “gourmet's quest,” given that it's “the everyday fare that sparks her interest.”

And what if “monstrous Colette” ( Jean Cocteau), her “infernal evil” (Liliane de Pougy), which is said to have “perverted” even “maternal instinct” ( Jeannie Malige), this glimmer of “a certain France […] as complicated as ancient China” (Marguerite Yourcenar), what if they move closer to us when we listen through the device Sigmund Freud discovered? It's not because the mischievous Claudine runs out on the dramatic Viennese women in a neurotic fin de siècle that the secrets of the “pure and impure” and the animal or floral borders of her pleasure light up in the glow of this “interior experience.” Nor is it because this independent writer seduces Simone de Beauvoir herself after having condemned the feminists to a whiplashing. Colette's is an experience that the mystics practiced and which psychoanalysis restores to modern men and women. Freudian vocabulary from “depression” to “perversion” and other “sublimations” no longer offends if we take the trouble not to apply it but to deepen its meaning, as I tried to do, reading Colette in Female Genius. Labels and clichés dissolve in proximity to Colettian desires. Today, it's the reverse of listening to her through Freud that I want to propose: how Colette's experience, as I read it in her writing, not only calls upon, deepens, displaces, and modifies psychoanalytic tools but also the conventional reception of literary genius and the very pleasures of reading.

This Jouissance of Writing […] Named Sido

Apollinaire once described Colette as “perverse,” before his preference for “mischievous,” no longer hesitating to compare her provocative audacity to the tragic immodesty of the first Christians: “And so, freed from modesty, the Roman martyrs entered the arena.” Perverse? Colette? Certainly, a little, or not at all.

Introduction

This chapter examines the nature of health policy and implementation in Sudan. It analyzes the challenges of the healthcare delivery system in the country. It argues that despite the previously well-established healthcare system in the country, the challenges of several years of political instability have prevented Sudan's ability to effectively prevent the spread of communicable and noncommunicable diseases. The finding of the research analysis reveals that the ineffective healthcare delivery system has created an aftermath of an increase of chronic and endemic infectious diseases such as malaria, leishmaniasis, and schistosomiasis are incrementally causing substantial morbidity and mortality. Further, antimicrobial resistance has become a major threat throughout the healthcare system, with an emerging impact on maternal, neonatal, and pediatric populations. Communicable and noncommunicable diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, renal disease, and cancer are also increasingly causing high rates of substantial morbidity and mortality. Some recommendations are provided on how to better adapt healthcare delivery strategies that could be more effective in helping Sudan to accomplish its sustainable development and healthcare goals in the future. There is however an urgent need for the nation to focus more on how to meet the healthcare needs of its citizens in both the urban and rural areas by adopting a better economic support system, and health information system, and attracting a better-qualified health and professional workforce. It will also be a sustainable humanitarian service for the Government of Sudan to adopt health laws and social justice policies that support women and girls to make their own decisions about personal sexual and reproductive healthcare.

Brief History of Sudan

The Republic of Sudan is a country in the northeastern part of the African continent. The nation has boundaries with the following African countries. the Arab Republic of Egypt in the north, and the Republic of Ethiopia in the southeast. The Red Sea is located in the northeastern part of Sudan, and the Republic of Eritrea is located in the eastern part of Sudan. Further, the Republic of Sudan has boundaries with the Arab Republic of Libya in the northwestern part of the country, while the Arab Republic of Chad is located in the western part of the country.

As mentioned earlier, this chapter is constructed according to the emerging themes and content analysis that provide a sharper and more explicit focus on women's own voices, which is the central aim of this book. Most of the extracts in this chapter are derived from focused interviews and all the different data sets that were used in the discussion. The research process for this study was as follows:

Thus, the four randomly selected colleges were best divided into four economic classes: upper, upper-middle, lower-middle and working. The focused group interview women sample did not allow me to mention their real names in this study. Therefore, I used fake names: Nawal (from Jinnah (upper class), Gulalai (from Home Economics (upper-middle), Aiman (from Frontier (lower-middle) and Kiran (from City (working); however, the director of education allowed me to mention the real names of the colleges (see Appendix I for their brief social background information). It is important to emphasise here that to gain deeper insights, I conducted the interviews in local languages, and I translated them verbatim, as one of the central aims of this book is to allow women's voices to be heard. Three of the interviews took place in their college and one at the sample woman's house; the selection for the interview was purely on a voluntary basis from the initial Survey sample.

Methodological Aspects of This Study

It is unlikely that women's colleges in Peshawar would allow male researchers access to female students’ experiences and thoughts. Hence, my gender, religion, nationality and education were important factors that made this study possible. Due to the then political situation of Pukhtunkhwa, the administrators of educational institutions were reluctant to share information about the educational institutes. Therefore, the principals of the girls’ colleges were understandably cautious about my research and did further security checks before allowing me to commence my study, because they feared that collecting young women's (20–25 years old) thoughts and ideas would probably have a negative influence on the women students themselves. Thus, I selected both quantitative and qualitative methods, as both methods can be used to enhance the findings.