It will be interesting to see exactly which customs the Vatican is going to allow from the past rich five centuries of Anglican worship, life and thought.
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ecology & placeThe relationship between people, home, and place shifts, as landscape, culture, and technology fluctuates. Here, we examine the ebb and flow of people, places, and culture.
The frenetic urban growth of Bangladesh's capital forces its inhabitants into new ways of living
Stockholm's woodland cemetery is a landscape whose democratic ideals serve a universal sense
Russia has banned the hunting of baby harp seals. The victory follows a personal crusade by International Fund for Animal Welfare's Maria Vorontsova.
Anthony Giddens' new book The Politics of Climate Change manages the politics and ignores the challenge
Ecuador's new leftist government is considering bestowing legal "rights" upon nature. What would Hannah Arendt think?
The financial breakdown is opening new fissures in the world's political crust
Gandhi's vision of a non-violent social order remains the template for ecology, peace and social justice
The author of "Waterlog" and the forthcoming "Wildwood" explored the natural landscape in fresh, surprising and influential ways. Ken Worpole pays tribute to Roger Deakin, and introduces his openDemocracy "swimmer's journey" article from July 2001.
John Davies' beautiful panoramic photographs of the British landscape capture an industrial world now lost and a modernity running away from its past, says Ken Worpole.
Can architecture be democratic? Jeremy Till warns against empty gestures and sticking handwritten notes on technical drawings, and welcomes Lift's mold-breaking project to design a New Parliament.
The London International Festival of Theatre wants your vote in its architecture competition to design the Lift New Parliament, a travelling performance and meeting space – preview the designs and cast your vote.
Jane Jacobs's book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" changed the way people thought about urban planning, the street and the character of cities. Roger Scruton reflects on the relevance of its message today.
The landscape artist Ian Hamilton Finlay created an extraordinary fusion of sculpture, inscription and philosophy in his Little Sparta garden. Ken Worpole considers a complex figure.
"When we get down to swimming, we get down to democracy." Ken Worpole finds a political challenge in the revival of a public arena where sensuous and spiritual pleasures combine: the lido and open-air swimming pool.
A journey through the coastal landscape of Essex, eastern England, convinces Ken Worpole that human beings in the 21st century must relearn how to live with water.
The battle over fox-hunting in England has led to a crisis of authority in the state itself. Anthony Barnett asks John Jackson, a key figure in the case and chairman of a leading law firm, Mishcon de Reya, to comment on the significance of the latest decision by a high-level panel of judges.
The unchallengeable heart of the case against fox-hunting is that it inflicts cruelty on its quarry, says a prominent figure in Britain’s animal protection movement.
A former leading official with Britain’s League Against Cruel Sports describes how he came to change his mind about banning hunting with dogs.
Even before the British government of Tony Blair first proposed to ban hunting with dogs in England and Wales two years ago, thus provoking massive protest demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people, openDemocracy realised that this polarising issue required discussion and dialogue between voices on different sides of the argument. The result was our debate of June–December 2002, “Hunting culture – is there a place for hunting in the modern world?”
Unequal power relationships in the world economic system mean that hungry Africans often have no choice but to eat genetically-modified food. Patrick Mulvany argues that food aid policies can be driven by the commercial policies interests of rich nations rather than the interests of the most vulnerable people.
Can a 73-year old Canadian farmer’s legal challenge to biotechnology giants succeed in altering global rules on patent law?
The litmus test of a healthy, civilised life, the convivial route to harmony between people and nations: Frank Ward glimpses a better world in the mirror of a wine glass.
When alcohol is imagined as evil, absinthe, the legendary 19th century French drink of the mad and bad, plays the role of the devil. Why its links with social unrest and sexual deviance?
Irish people’s high alcohol consumption has been transformed in the public mind from a cultural trait into a major medical and social problem. How did the country’s drinking culture acquire its harder, violent edge?
Britain’s city and town centres float on a sea of alcoholic excess. After years of promoting the benefits of the “leisure economy”, can its public policy help restore alcohol to its truer place as a lubricant of life and laughter?
A combination of pagan roots, national traditions, and modern attitudes has shaped the Scottish New Year celebration called Hogmanay. Without the myths, is it any more than an inebriated street party?
A memorial to atrocity in a beautiful Paris park causes Ken Worpole to reflect on the dark shadows of the public realm.
The marketing and developing of GM crops across Africa is intensely controversial. But in an interview with Sophie Jeffreys and Ian Christie of openDemocracy, Walter Alhassan argues that African farmers have little to fear from biotechnology when it is correctly monitored, and much to gain.
A toxic mixture of dams, pollution, smuggling, greed and post-Soviet collapse is driving the sturgeon to extinction. The fate of caviar, finds Vanora Bennett, is written in the recent history of the Caspian region.
The promise of micro-technology as a tool of social progress is balanced by fear of its use to reduce freedom and widen global divisions. The benign if flawed vision of E.F. Schumacher still holds lessons for how a better social application of science can serve the interests of the world’s poor and the planet’s sustainability.
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