Mark A. Bonta
Cultural geographer and educator Mark A. Bonta covers ecology, democracy, local self-reliance and community-based solutions to global problems.
Thousands of African migrants living in Guangzhou in southern China are being targeted by racist attacks and policies. The problem has become so bad that one African nation has even begun evacuating its citizens from China. The reason? Besides simple prejudice, Africans are being blamed for exposing Chinese people to COVID-19. African students in Chinese […]
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The $700 billion global remittance economy is taking big hits from COVID-19, and the families and nations that depend on it are in trouble. Remittances are person-to-person fund transfers from immigrants who travel to wealthy nations for work, and then send the bulk of their earnings back to the millions of families they left behind […]
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Social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is more difficult in crowded urban spaces. These include sidewalks, where people are forced to congregate while carrying out essential tasks such as heading to the grocery, lining up for a clinic appointment, or just getting some necessary exercise. It’s a vexing problem, but urban officials the […]
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The conventional wisdom is that harvesting wild animals for food is the route by which the coronavirus that has caused the COVID-19 pandemic jumped from animals to humans. Critics say it’s not the fault of the animals, but rather how humans behave. Why animals? Here’s term you should get to know: “emerging zoonotic diseases.” These […]
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The conventional wisdom is that the coronavirus behind the COVID-19 pandemic jumped to human beings from animals sold for food in an open-air “wet market” in Wuhan, China. China has subsequently been widely criticized for permitted wet markets to remain open. Yet it turns out that these types of marketplaces are not the problem — […]
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The world’s impoverished people already shoulder heavy burdens of personal debt. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, and jobs everywhere evaporated. Although this pandemic-driven wave of unemployment is temporary, the financial position of poor people has become even more precarious, making them prey for debt collectors, loan sharks — and slavery. The scourge of debt collection […]
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