The problem of obtaining permission of national governments for field research in Africa has been frequently documented. The Research Liaison Committee of the African Studies Association was formed in 1966 with the purpose of serving as a center for collection and dissemination of information on U.S. scholars and their research in Africa, communications on the role and mode of research in Africa, referral of questions it was unable to answer itself, collection of files on research clearance regulations, establishing of contact on behalf of researchers going to Africa, and maintaining liaison with African studies groups outside the United States. In interviews conducted in East Africa for the Committee in 1967, Vernon McKay learned that control procedures associated with foreign scholars in Africa were only partially security oriented. Officials, especially those in the national capitals, were being inundated by would-be researchers. Although the value of research was not denied, officials suggested to McKay that research be directed toward needs of the host country -- toward studies that would aid its economic, social, and development planning. Local officials issued a plea that research results be made available to the host as soon as possible.

Research clearance problems in Tanzania are better structured than elsewhere in Africa. Applications are directed through the University College in Dar es Salaam. In Tanzania, as in other countries, even the clearance successfully completed must be followed by establishment of contacts and working relationships “upcountry.” Field research circumstances, especially pertinent to geographers, demand the tolerance, if not the active encouragement of local (subnational) government.

This article takes a micro-history approach, focusing on the life of a man identified only in the British records as “Ned” in order to illuminate the complexity and slipperiness of categories of “race.” Ned had lived in the Zulu Kingdom and, after fleeing a civil war there, became employed in Natal by an English colonist-settler, Thomas Handley. Ned traveled with the Handley family to England in 1859, and during this time, unexpectedly “disappeared” from the Handley's residence near Sheffield. A manhunt ensued and, as locals ruminated on Ned's possible status as a “slave,” the case attracted the interest of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Ned was eventually taken to London and housed in the Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders before his tragic death a few months later. His repeated escapes transfixed the public and resulted in detailed press coverage. Numerous parties became interested in his case, and complex and changing processes of racialization were key to the shifting ways in which he was represented. In this article, we both search for Ned's agency and volition, and demonstrate how the case also speaks to major issues in British history, including race, humanitarianism, and enslavement.

Child and youth mental health is an international public health and research priority. We are an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral network of UK-based early career researchers (ECRs) with an interest in child and youth mental health research. In this paper, we reflect on ongoing challenges and areas for growth, offering recommendations for key stakeholders in our field, including researchers, institutions and funders. We present a vision from an ECR perspective of what future child and youth mental health research could look like and we explore how the research infrastructure can support ECRs and the wider research field in making this vision a reality. We focus specifically on: (a) embracing complexity; (b) centring diverse voices; and (c) facilitating sustainable research environments and funding systems. We present recommendations for all key partners to consider alongside their local contexts and communities to actively and collaboratively drive progress and transformative change.

Evidence of epigenetic risk of metabolic syndrome (MetS) from both parents, and its increasing prevalence globally, underscores the necessity for effective lifestyle interventions preconception. Despite this, very few studies have examined couples-based interventions and those which are concerned with foetal health rarely monitor paternal health outcomes(1). This study evaluates the feasibility and adherence of a 10-week couples-based lifestyle intervention targeting diet and physical activity. Utilising an exploratory sequential mixed methods design, the study recruited 16 participants (8 couples) aged 18–44 years, living together with a BMI between 18.5 and 38 kg/m². Participants received personalised dietary and physical activity guidance aligned with national guidelines, with progress tracked via the Easy Diet Diary app and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Quantitative data were collected at baseline, mid-point, and end of the intervention, while qualitative insights were obtained through semi-structured interviews post-intervention. The intervention aimed to leverage the natural support system within couples to enhance adherence to healthy lifestyle behaviours. Quantitative findings indicated positive trends in reducing sedentary behaviour by an average of 1105 minutes per week and increasing vegetable consumption by 1.7 servings per day. Participants also showed improvements in BMI and waist-to-hip ratios, with significant reductions noted by the end of the intervention. Qualitative data and thematic analysis provided rich context to these findings and underscored the importance of mutual support, shared responsibility, and accountability in fostering adherence, but also indicated a need for more flexible and user-friendly tracking tools. Partner encouragement, joint activities such as meal planning, exercising together, and shared responsibility emerged as significant adherence enhancers while differing timing and work schedules were a common barrier. This study demonstrates that a couples-based approach can effectively enhance adherence to lifestyle modifications, promoting significant behavioural changes and improving health outcomes by leveraging the inherent support system within the relationship, thereby facilitating more sustainable health behaviours. Future research should explore long-term impacts and optimise intervention strategies to address identified challenges, ensuring broader applicability and effectiveness in diverse populations. The promising results of this feasibility study advocate for the potential scalability of couples-based interventions as a public health strategy to combat MetS and related conditions.

This submission argues in favour of re-examining the pedagogical role of the microscopic matter of dust as a creative, lively, rebellious participant in an early childhood centre in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on posthuman theories of matter and the social construction of creative agency, this essay shows how the most abject of agents in an early learning educational context have nonhuman agency, and that dust interacts collegially with young children and microscopes, creating (new) playful situations between bodies, atmospheres and spaces. Some educational and western narratives that associate purity, order, and validity with cleanliness propose that dust is akin to dirt. Therefore, dust is seen as maligned. This essay advances an argument that removes the association with dirt and repositions dust. Dust is regarded here as an ordinary teacher, researcher, fellow explorer with children, and a strong agentic collaborator in learning environments. Dust is proposed in our essay to activate children’s connections and relationships to creative ecological microworlds and all forms of planetary lives. Dust also helps rethink some early childhood education practices around the organic bodies that are included and excluded, and the prioritisation of human bodies in discussions about environments and ecologies.

Putting our concepts of dustly microbodies to work, we speculatively explore how the exclusions and expulsions of such microbodies in the early childhood education space can be considered a form of colonising practice, and that re-theorising, re-materialising and decolonising dust allows us to explore concepts of decentralising the human, challenge boundaries of individuality and binaries such as the nature-culture divide and disrupt current educational approaches and frameworks. Additionally, dust invites us to attune to the wildness of microworlds and reimagine more experimental and relational ways of approaching environmental education. Moving away from the dominant stories usually told from psychological, sociological, and anthropological perspectives in early childhood education and applying Harris’s concept of “creative ecologies” (2021) instead.

Owing to its diverse geology, geography and climate, Japan is a country rich in biodiversity. However, as a result of accelerated development over the last century, and particularly the post-war decades, Japan's natural environments and the wildlife which inhabit them have come under increased pressure. Now, much of Japan's natural forest, wetlands, rivers, lakes and coastal environments have been destroyed or seriously degraded as a consequence of development and pollution. Despite increasing awareness of the importance of preserving Japan's remaining natural environments and wildlife, habitat destruction (both direct and indirect), inadequately controlled hunting, and introduced species pose a threat to these. This paper explores these factors, and the underlying forces—political, legislative and economic—which have undermined efforts to preserve Japan's natural heritage during the post-war decades.

Owing to its diverse geology, geography and climate, Japan is a country rich in biodiversity. However, as a result of accelerated development over the last century, and particularly the post-war decades, Japan's natural environments and the wildlife which inhabit them have come under increased pressure. Now, much of Japan's natural forest, wetlands, rivers, lakes and coastal environments have been destroyed or seriously degraded as a consequence of development and pollution. Despite increasing awareness of the importance of preserving Japan's remaining natural environments and wildlife, habitat destruction (both direct and indirect), inadequately controlled hunting, and introduced species pose a threat to these. This paper explores these factors, and the underlying forces—political, legislative and economic—which have undermined efforts to preserve Japan's natural heritage during the post-war decades.

In this communication, the Australian authors – two Indigenous women and one woman with Anglo-Celtic ancestry – take us into Western Australian Indigenous language and worldviews, to help us reach toward a regenerative worldview. Indigenous words such as rinyi, pirlirr, and liyan are explored to point us in a direction unfamiliar to many English speakers, to Land and Country as living and responsive. The authors notice that it is very difficult to describe these terms in English, because English language does not seem sufficiently capacious to describe the depth of relational being-with Country that Indigenous languages portray. This may be changing, as various Indigenous and place-based groups publish their messages to the world. Within a methodology that is poetic and ontological, a storying method is used to illustrate elements of an Indigenous regenerative worldview that highlights the lyrics of life, for hope. It is for change agents who want to be transformative of the ways they participate with Country; and enable children to learn.

Earlier objects are frequently identified in later contexts, though rarely form the focus of discussion. This paper presents 34 sites where earlier Bronze Age metalwork has been found in later Bronze Age contexts in southern Britain, including hoards and non-hoard contexts. These ‘out-of-time’ objects follow complex trajectories and can inform us about the potential ways past societies conceived their own pasts, especially when contextualized in broader integrated landscapes. Out-of-time objects might be deposited singly or within hoards to reinforce community boundaries and legitimize links with past communities. The form, wear and treatment of these objects pre-deposition (e.g. curation and/or deformation) as well as the places in which they were buried represent indicators of prehistoric processes of commemoration and/or forgetting.

This project evaluated the outcomes of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)-informed interventions for individuals with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes mellitus experiencing mental health distress related to their condition or self-management burden. A within-subjects design evaluated the effectiveness of ACT-informed interventions using pre- and post-psychological wellbeing and diabetes specific outcome measures and HbA1C data. The interventions were part of the Croydon Community Diabetes service which began in October 2020. Fifty-six service users completed psychological wellbeing outcome measures (PHQ-9, GAD-7 and CORE-10) and 38 of these service users fully completed the diabetes specific measure (either DDS or the PAID). Thirty-nine service users had HbA1C data before the start of treatment and following the end of treatment. Wilcoxon’s signed rank test was used to analyse psychological outcomes and HbA1c data. Descriptive statistics were used for diabetes specific measures due to small sample sizes. Statistically significant reductions in levels of depression, generalised anxiety, and general psychological distress were found following ACT-informed interventions. Statistically significant reductions were also observed for HbA1c readings. Although inferential statistics were not used, the data highlighted that n=21 and n=14 reported reduction in scores on the DDS and PAID, respectively. Preliminary evidence suggests that ACT-informed interventions in an NHS community diabetes clinic for a sample of people living with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes are associated with improved psychological wellbeing and diabetes distress.

Key learning aims

1. (1) To learn about the current evidence base and missing gaps in research on the use of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) for people living with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes mellitus.

2. (2) To provide clinicians with an example of brief individualised ACT informed psychological interventions based on a sample of people living with diabetes in South London.

3. (3) To learn about the implementation of ACT informed psychological interventions in a naturalistic evaluation of a community Diabetes NHS service that reflects realistic treatment delivery.

4. (4) Through the limitations discussed in this paper, we provide future suggestions for psychologists working in diabetes care for evaluating their service in a naturalistic setting. This includes the collection of data through various sources such as the use of physical health measures and therapy process measures.

Culinary nutrition (encompassing culinary medicine) is an emerging field that is gaining traction as potential means to mitigate the global disease burden linked to unhealthy dietary patterns, by fostering practical culinary and nutrition literacy among health professionals. Culinary nutrition programmes have shown promise in improving dietary behaviour, cooking confidence, and nutrition counselling skills among students and professionals(1). There is a recognised need for the development and evaluation of standardised culinary nutrition training for nutrition and dietetics (N&D) professionals and there is limited understanding regarding the preparedness of the next generation of nutritionists and dietitians in delivering effective culinary nutrition programmes(2). This study aimed to investigate the cooking and food practices of students of N&D in UK to assess their capabilities and to inform the requirements of future educational curricula.

Between May and June 2023, an online survey was circulated to all UK universities delivering AfN- or BDA-approved nutrition or dietetics programmes, for subsequent circulation to students. It contained validated questionnaires on cooking and food skills confidence, meal preparation frequency, food engagement, and completion of curriculum-based cooking sessions. King’s College London provided ethical approval. Kruskal-Wallis H tests and hierarchical multiple regression modelling with adjustment of relevant covariates were conducted using SPSS Statistics v29.0.2, with a significance threshold of p<0.05.

There were complete responses from 213 students of N&D from 27 UK universities. Respondents mean age was 28.1± 9.4 years, 194 (91.1%) were female, and 132 (62.1%) were white ethnicity. The cohort comprised 57 undergraduate and 95 postgraduate nutrition and 32 undergraduate and 29 postgraduate dietetic students. Students’ average confidence scores were 84.3± 14.7 (out of 98) for cooking skills and 112.0± 20.7 (out of 133) for food skills, with an average food engagement score of 40.2± 4.7 (out of 50). 95 (44.6%) students reported cooking a main meal daily, and 141 (66.2%) had completed an average of 14.2± 16.4 practical cooking session hours as part of their degree program. Undergraduate dietitians completed the least time of cooking sessions at 3.00h, versus undergraduate nutritionists at 9.00h (p = 0.044) and postgraduate nutritionists at 10.00h (p = 0.025). Hierarchical regression models accounted for 18.8% of the variance in cooking skills confidence and 27.7% in food skills confidence. Notably, meal preparation frequency and food engagement significantly contributed to the explained variance in the respective models (p<0.001), even after adjusting for demographic factors such as gender and ethnicity.

Students of N&D in the UK exhibit higher cooking and food skills confidence compared to the general population(3). Coupled with their inherent knowledge of nutritional science, they are wellpositioned to implement future culinary nutrition interventions that could enhance public dietary behaviour and health outcomes. However, to ensure the future workforce is ready, there is a need for curriculum consensus.