The chiro kids

Kids tumble around the floor of the reception area and its adjacent open-plan treatment room as young mothers congregate near the reception desk, where racks of naturopathic products and vitamin supplements are arrayed against the wall. On this Thursday morning, Sipser is at work adjusting the spine of Maive Dowling, a six-week-old baby, pressing her back with a chrome steel chiropractic "adjuster" that resembles a giant hypodermic syringe.

"It's her fourth adjustment so I know her patterns," Sipser says, as he feels along the infant's spine with his hands. Baby Maive doesn't have a back problem - she has reflux, which Sipser says he can alleviate by manipulating her spine. It's a belief keenly endorsed by the baby's 34-year-old mother, Amy Dowling, who has been bringing her three children to this chiropractic clinic in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Elwood almost weekly for several years. "When my son Ned was only a couple of days old, Warren came to the hospital just to check him over," she explains.

Sipser calls himself a "primary care provider" and refers to his practice as a "wellness centre". This keen-eyed 34-year-old rattles off medical terminology, assuring parents that all manner of children's health problems - colds, ear infections, colic, bed-wetting, hyperactivity, asthma - may be caused by spinal misalignments. It's a passionate belief he buttresses by producing a raft of journal articles that suggest chiropractors can repair DNA, optimise the immune system and make vaccination unnecessary.

"It's about whole health," says Sipser, who originally trained as a paramedic in South Africa but graduated as a chiropractor from RMIT University in Melbourne 11 years ago. "Things like ear infections, colic and asthma are the most common issues, but taking a proactive approach means you can see kids on an ongoing basis for body balance and even DNA repair." Children now make up 40 per cent of his business, says Sipser, who is completing a masters degree in paediatric chiropractic at RMIT.

Chiropractors have long ranked as the most popular alternative-health practitioners - there are more than 4000 of them across Australia. Their mainstay treatment is an "adjustment" of the vertebrae to realign the spine. But Sipser symbolises a relatively new phenomenon: the chiropractor as family physician. Spurred by the public's hunger for alternative healthcare, practitioners such as Sipser are venturing far beyond the simple relief of back pain.

Picking Up the Slack in Waste Collection and Ecological Protection ...

Across South America there is a growing movement – assuming different forms and characteristics, but with similar origins, demands and objectives – that, despite it being located at a strategically important intersection between two critical social issues – class struggle and ecology – seems to me to have received little attention in South African academic and activist circles. And this is true despite the fact that the social and economic conditions that gave rise to this movement prevail in South Africa, as they did – and continue to – in many South American countries. Perhaps this is due to the fact that this movement concerns people largely marginalised by industrial society and so-called ‘brown’ ecological issues – such as the pollution and contamination of rivers and dams surrounding poor communities, most acutely effecting the workers and poor – as opposed to the much more sanitary ‘green’ ecological issues – such as conservation and animal welfare – often associated, in South Africa at least, with liberal white activists from the middle and upper classes [1].

This is the movement of the catadores in Uruguay; the recyclable waste pickers and sorters who, similarly to South Africa, constitute a growing informal sector in the industrial production cycle. This includes all people – not formally employed by public or private waste management services – who collect, transport, classify and sell recyclable waste for a living – or ‘work with scrap’ – thus “reducing demand for natural resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions” [2]. A category of work which, according to the World Bank, is performed by 15 million people globally – or one percent of the world population [3] – and has become increasingly common in South Africa in recent years.