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Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Human geography > Economic geography
In nature, radiata pine is very localised and an obscure tree species despite the romantic character of much of its natural habitat. That obscure status and the lack of any reputation as a virgin timber slowed its due recognition as a commercial crop. Nevertheless, it has become a major plantation forest crop internationally. It has become the pre-eminent commercial forest species in New Zealand, Chile and Australia, with important plantings in some other countries. It consequently features prominently in the international trade in forest products, in addition to its importance in domestic markets of grower countries. Very fast growth, considerable site tolerances, ease of raising in nurseries and transplanting, and ease of processing and using its wood for a range of products and purposes, have made it the utility softwood of choice almost everywhere it can be grown satisfactorily. Abundant genetic variation and its amenability to other management inputs created special opportunities for its domestication. The story of its domestication forms a classic case history in the development of modern commercial forestry, with trailblazing in both genetic improvement and plantation management; this inevitably meant a learning process that provided instructive lessons, especially for tree breeders dealing with some other species. Paradoxically, the plantation monocultures have played and can continue to play an important role in protecting natural forests and other forms of biodiversity. Given the attractions of growing radiata pine, there were inevitably cases of overreach in planting it, with lessons to be learnt. Economic globalisation has meant globalisation of pests and disease organisms, and the scale on which radiata pine is grown has meant is has been the focus of various biotic alarms, none of which have proved catastrophic. Temptations, remain, however, to pay less than due attention to some aspects of risk management. The chapter structure of the book is based on historical periods, beginning long before any important human influences, and ending with a look into what the future might hold for the species and its role in human and ecological sustainability. Almost throughout, there has been complex interplay between the technical aspects, local social and economic factors, various types of institution, the enthusiasm and drive of some very influential individuals, and tides of economic ideology, threads that needed to be woven together to do the story justice.
Imagined Regional Communities provides an original approach to thinking about the processes of regional integration. Focusing mostly on communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America, it develops detailed case studies based on archives, interviews and critical readings of existing texts. These case-studies are related to each other and the overall themes of the book, so that a set of narratives and theoretical elaborations emerge, that critically reformulate understandings of regional communities, statehold and sovereignty.
The development of the information technology (IT) industry in the Asia Pacific region faces two challenges. Firstly, can its established physical, technical, regional and governance infrastructures be adapted to meet the challenges embedded in the set of products and processes created by the IT industry? Secondly, as this adaptation evolves, which cities and regions will be best suited to connect to or lead global responses to these challenges? The chapters in this book have set out to explore these questions, providing details of change in a range of aspects of the IT industry such as mobile phones, software services, and flat screen design in regions in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, China and Australia. The book also outlines the policy responses of national and regional governments in Singapore, India and China and India. These case studies provide a basis to understand effective strategies which could be formulated for the future. This book's originality emerges from the fine detail provided about firms, in particular regions and cities, from research carried out by young scholars in the past two years. This makes it very useful for readers keen to understand the recent changes in this dynamic industry in a fast growth part of the world, and it will also help to shape thinking by policy makers on policy settings that can be applied.
: This comprehensive text explores contemporary geographic topics and perspectives relating to the world economy. The authors provide a strong theoretical and practical foundation for understanding the global economy in an era of shifting borders, restructuring economies, and regional realignments. Economic theory is combined with geography to address critical problems of growth, distribution, and development, along with their impact on international business. Recent geopolitical changes are vividly portrayed in a series of superb full-color maps and striking photographs. The Sixth Edition includes updated tables and data, color maps, 2009 economic statistics, a detailed analysis of the global shift in world trade and development, eleven new Case Studies, and a new Premium Website with videos, weblinks, RSS feeds, and quizzes.
How are social inequalities experienced, reproduced and challenged in local, global and transnational spaces? What role does the control of space play in distribution of crucial resources and forms of capital (housing, education, pleasure, leisure, social relationships)? The case studies in Geographies of Privilege demonstrate how power operates and is activated within local, national, and global networks. Twine and Gardener have put together a collection that analyzes how the centrality of spaces (domestic, institutional, leisure, educational) are central to the production, maintenance and transformation of inequalities. The collected readings show how power--in the form of economic, social, symbolic, and cultural capital--is employed and experienced. The volume's contributors take the reader to diverse sites, including brothels, blues clubs, dance clubs, elite schools, detention centers, advocacy organizations, and public sidewalks in Canada, Italy, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Mozambique, South Africa, and the United States. Geographies of Privilege is the perfect teaching tool for courses on social problems, race, class and gender in Geography, Sociology and Anthropology.
How are social inequalities experienced, reproduced and challenged in local, global and transnational spaces? What role does the control of space play in distribution of crucial resources and forms of capital (housing, education, pleasure, leisure, social relationships)? The case studies in Geographies of Privilege demonstrate how power operates and is activated within local, national, and global networks. Twine and Gardener have put together a collection that analyzes how the centrality of spaces (domestic, institutional, leisure, educational) are central to the production, maintenance and transformation of inequalities. The collected readings show how power--in the form of economic, social, symbolic, and cultural capital--is employed and experienced. The volume's contributors take the reader to diverse sites, including brothels, blues clubs, dance clubs, elite schools, detention centers, advocacy organizations, and public sidewalks in Canada, Italy, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Mozambique, South Africa, and the United States. Geographies of Privilege is the perfect teaching tool for courses on social problems, race, class and gender in Geography, Sociology and Anthropology.
One important legacy of colonialism is the separation of a culture from the land upon which its people live. Populations are displaced; topographical objects are renamed, and the land becomes a resource to be exploited. Starting with three landscapes viewed as threatening by the Europeans who colonized them, Imagined Topographies examines the ways artists, writers, and musicians distill new meaning in formerly colonized spaces through the articulation of landscapes that are homelands, not commodities. In the Irish bog Seamus Heaney explores legacies of violence, John Dunne looks at rural poverty and religious faith, and Catherine Harper creates art connecting landscape and gender. Influenced by the Amazon, Wilson Harris creates dense multi-layered Guyanese epics, Karen Tei Yamashita plays with the telenovela to explore the role of multinational corporations in deforestation, and in recordings Douglas Quin combines the natural world with the technological, raising questions of connected cultural and natural loss. The two landscapes of Australia, the empty land of the colonizers and the fertile land known by the original inhabitants, are explored in the novels of David Malouf, while Peter Carey turns to the animal world to define the Australian national character, and the people of Ramingining, in films and a website created in collaboration with the filmmaker Rolf de Heer, intervene in the Australian land rights struggle. Challenging the dominant perceptions of land in these regions, artists, musicians, and writers create new visions of landscapes tied to cultures where social and ecological justice offer choices other than emigration and habitat destruction.
First published in 1992, this Routledge Revival sees the reissue of a truly original exploration of the nature of urbanization and capitalism. Linda Clarke's vital work argues that: Urbanization is a product of the social human labour engaged in building as well as a concentration of the labour force. The quality of the labour process determines the development of production. Changes to the built environment reflect changes in the production process and, in particular, the development of wage labour. To support these arguments, the author identifies a qualitatively new historical stage of capitalist building production involving a significant expansion of wage labour, and hence capital, and the transition from artisan to industrial production. Linda Clarke draws from a wide range of original material relating to the development of London from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century to provide a complete description of the development process: materials extraction, roadbuilding, housebuilding, paving, cleansing, etc; profiles of builders and contractors involved, and a picture of the new working class communities, as in Somers Town - their living conditions, population, working environment, and politics.
First published in 1984, this book analyses contemporary changes in industry, employment, education, science and technology, social attitudes and values in the USA, leading to the emergence of a new geography of post-industrial America. David Clark emphasizes the distributional processes and trends that have occurred over the post-war period. Data are analysed by reference to the then most recent census, of 1980. Throughout, the book provides a valuable and very comprehensive text that will be welcomed by all those wishing to study the geography of the contemporary USA.
This wide-ranging Handbook is the first major compilation of the theoretical and empirical research that is forging the new and exciting paradigm of evolutionary economic geography. The book's distinguished contributors set out the theoretical, methodological and empirical foundations of an evolutionary perspective on the economic landscape. In so doing, they explore the interplay between organizational dynamics, industrial dynamics and space; analyze the nature and spatial evolution of networks; address the evolution of institutions in territorial contexts; and explore the evolution of agglomerations and clusters. This original reference work will undoubtedly play an important and formative role in influencing the future research agenda of evolutionary economic geography. It will strongly appeal to scholars, researchers and students in economic geography, regional economics, evolutionary economics, industrial economics, management and organizational studies, and related fields. Contributors: C. Antonelli, R. Boschma, G. Bottazzi, S. Breschi, U. Cantner, G. Cioccarelli, P. Cooke, M.S. Dahl, B. Dalum, C. de Laurentis, S. Denicolai, P. Dindo, J. Essletzbichler, L. Fleming, K. Frenken, E. Giuliani, J. Gluckler, H. Graf, R. Hassink, S. Iammarino, J. Lambooy, C. Lenzi, F. Lissoni, A. Malmberg, R. Martin, P. Maskell, P. McCann, C.R. Ostergaard, D.L. Rigby, J.W. Rivkin, E.W. Schamp, J. Simmie, O. Sorenson, U. Staber, E. Stam, S. Strambach, P. Sunley, A. Vezzulli, A. Zucchella
The purpose of this book is to provide a guided tour through the theoretical foundations of spatial locations of firms and industries in an evolutionary economic framework. It addresses the issues of how a location of business in geographical space is selected and where economic activity may (re)locate in the future. The analysis is in the context of technological progress, innovation, disequilibrium and endemic uncertainty. Jovanovic raises pertinent questions such as how willing, motivated and able firms (and governments) are to adapt to constantly evolving new opportunities and challenges over time and to experiment and translate these perceptions into profitable actions. How is their 'competitive position' evolving relative to others and changing over time when faced with a stream of constantly arriving new opportunities, threats and obstacles? Considerations are always supported with a plethora of examples and cases from real life. Jovanovic argues that the economy is a complex and constantly adaptive system which is almost always outside equilibrium. Building on this, he suggests that there is an important lacuna in our understanding of evolutionary spatial economics and that there is much space for further multidisciplinary research in this academic and practical area. This book offers an evolutionary and disequilibrium analysis of the subject and makes parallels, where appropriate and possible, among economics, geography, physics, biology and art. It considers key areas in theory, market and production structure, spatial location of domestic and foreign firms, as well as regional policy. In addition, there are references to policy intervention; importance of investment in local social stability, education and training; as well as to uncontrollable variables that are beyond the influence of firms, industries, regions or public authorities. The author offers various evolutionary insights and alternatives to the pure neoclassical equilibrium economic model.
Environmental issues now loom large on the social, political, and
business agenda. Over the past four decades, "corporate
environmentalism" has emerged and been constantly redefined, from
regulatory compliance to more recent management conceptions such as
"pollution prevention," "total quality environmental management,"
"industrial ecology," "life cycle analysis," "environmental
strategy," "environmental justice," and, most recently,
"sustainable development."
Fierce competitiveness between established and emerging major cities, such as Berlin, London, Shanghai and Sydney, has led to a pressure to excel as desirable locations for business, cultural activities, highly skilled migrants and tourists. At the same time, the transformation of settled and new migrant communities creates complex urban borders and variegated representations (academic, cinematic, popular, official) of the city. While cities increasingly deploy cosmopolitan images portraying the diversity of past and present populations and activities, this continues to coexist with parochialism as a mood and mode of cultural formations and a reflection of local specificities. This volume brings together cultural analysts, social scientists, and media and film scholars to explore the ways in which core cities generate competing claims on, and visions of, their use and their future, and thus have engaged with the necessity to brand their image for international consumption and for internal coherence.
Pastoralism as a land use system is under recognized in terms of its contribution to food provision, livelihoods as well as to human security. This book is the first attempt to explore the dynamics of economic spaces of pastoral production and commodity systems for explicit South and North positionings. It develops and applies a new approach in combining agri-food, market and commodity chain perspectives with livelihood approaches. This enables new understandings of re-aligning exchange relations between the global south and the global north. The case studies presented open up new empirical insights in largely under-researched areas, such as Afghanistan, Chad, Tibet and Siberia and very recent changes in industrialized economies with major pastoral sectors. The book reveals new evidence and theoretical insights about significant changes in established producer-consumer relations in agriculture and food.
Individuals, consumer groups, nation states and supra-national bodies increasingly have interrogated the ethics of particular production and consumption relations such as GM foods. Flowing from and bound up with these political concerns is the growing interest in the mutual dependence of sites of (for example) production, distribution, retailing, design, advertising, marketing and final consumption. This timely volume draws together contributions concerned with the production, circulation and consumption of commodities. Not only do these case study examples seek to transcend older understandings of production and consumption, but they also explicitly tap into wider public debate about the meanings, origins and biographies of commodities. Taking a geographical approach to the analysis of links between producers and consumers, the book focuses upon the ways in which these ties increasingly are stretched across spaces and places. Critical engagements with the ways in which these spaces and places affect the economies, cultures and politics of the connections between producers and consumers are skilfully threaded through each section.
Drawing on the theoretical resources of institutional economics, The New Industrial Geography opens new perspectives in economic geography. In its focus on historical and geographical context, institutional embeddedness, and tacit rules and formal regulations, institutional economics is shown to be the perfect basis for understanding the profound economic and geographical changes of the last two decades, and on which also to build a new kind of industrial geography. Issues covered include: the retheorization of the geography of industrial districts; the analysis of institutional 'thickness', and the economic-geographical effects of institutional rigidity and sclerosis; the economic-geographical consequences of new regulatory bodies and policies; and the geographically situated character of institutions and regulatory frameworks, and the effects of separating them from their originating context; the development of new strategies for achieving more equitable forms of regional development.
Countering the many claims that the best days of capitalism are over following the economic meltdown of 2008 onwards, this book provocatively argues that a new golden age of capitalism - or upwave - began around 2002, and despite the unstable markets in the western world of the past few years, this upwave will produce previously unseen levels of wealth creation during the next twenty years. Basing this theory on the commercialisation of new technologies and the growth of new markets, the author claims that these positive trends are key to economic recovery in the US, UK and Europe. It argues that the most serious problem facing some countries in the west is government debt and that macroeconomic policy is of limited use in flexible and adaptive economies, where innovation, entrepreneurship and private investment should be encouraged in a range of cities and city regions. This highly original book will interest those concerned with national economies, nation states and urban policy.
First published in 1992, this Routledge Revival sees the reissue of a truly original exploration of the nature of urbanization and capitalism. Linda Clarke's vital work argues that: Urbanization is a product of the social human labour engaged in building as well as a concentration of the labour force. The quality of the labour process determines the development of production. Changes to the built environment reflect changes in the production process and, in particular, the development of wage labour. To support these arguments, the author identifies a qualitatively new historical stage of capitalist building production involving a significant expansion of wage labour, and hence capital, and the transition from artisan to industrial production. Linda Clarke draws from a wide range of original material relating to the development of London from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century to provide a complete description of the development process: materials extraction, roadbuilding, housebuilding, paving, cleansing, etc; profiles of builders and contractors involved, and a picture of the new working class communities, as in Somers Town - their living conditions, population, working environment, and politics.
This book provides an up-to-date, critical review of theoretical concepts connecting artists and urban development. It focuses on the multidimensionality of potential and actually observed interactions between artists and cities and their impacts on urban space, its form, functions and perceptions. Departing from the viewpoint that a more nuanced geography of artists is still needed to fully conceptualise the diversity of roles artistic creatives play in urban transformations, the book presents contributions with a common denominator of distinguishing artists as a unique professional and social group. The essays focus on the complexity of the artists' spatial preferences and analyse a myriad of expressions of artists' presence in urban centres in different geographic, political, economic, social, and spatial contexts drawing on experiences from 16 cities across Europe. The book presents several case studies ranging from Spain to Russia and from Scandinavia to Slovenia, and offers new pathways into understanding the implications of artists' residence and activities in contemporary cities. Apart from presenting less obvious expressions of artists' involvement in urban transformations such as their participation in urban planning or grass root urban movements, the volume explores the ambivalence of artists' interactions with cities. Particular chapters test several divergent narratives of artistic creatives as inspirers and instigators of urban changes, pioneers of gentrification, contesters and resisters of neoliberal urban policies or mere indicators of transformations inspired by other actors, instrumentalized by public and private stakeholders.
What is a Global City? Who authorizes the World Class City? This edited volume interrogates the "global cities" literature, which views the city as a shimmering, financial "global network." Through a historical-ethnographic exploration of inter-ethnic relations in the "other global" cities of Cairo, Beirut, Istanbul, Bukhara, Lhasa, Delhi, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Tokyo, the well-known contributors highlight cartographies of the Other Global City. The volume contends that thinking about the city in the longue duree and as part of a topography of interconnected regions contests both imperial and nationalist ways of reading cities that have occasioned the many and particularly violent territorial partitions in Asia and the world.
This book rejects the idea that natural resource industries are doomed to slow growth. Rather, it examines the case of Norway to demonstrate that such industries can prove highly innovative and dynamic. Here, the case is compellingly made that a key empirical problem with the popular 'resource curse' argument is that some of the richest countries in the world - namely Norway, Sweden, Canada and Australia - have all developed fast-growing economies based on natural resources. Analysis of innovation and knowledge development in natural resource industries reveal important new insights about the role of learning and innovation. These insights are key to understanding variances in growth levels between natural resource-based economies. Ranestad illustrates how Norway's high economic performance is built on knowledge-based natural resource industries. While Norwegian industries may have originated because of foreign technology and expertise, they thrived due to further developments carried out by organisations within Norway. Ranestad looks at how these developments were possible due to the country's high level of human capital, capacity for knowledge absorption and ability to adapt to new global technological and economic circumstances.
Why do firms in high technology industries cluster at particular locations? The authors examine whether firms grow faster at such locations, and whether disproportionately more new firms are created in clusters. They compare the clustering process in the UK and the US in both computing and biotechnology, and investigate the policy implications.
This book discusses the conditions that underpin configuration of specific places as resource peripheries and the consequences that such a socio-spatial formation involves for those places. The book thereby provides an interdisciplinary approach underpinned by economic geography, political ecology, resource geography, development studies and political geography. It also discusses the different technological, political and economic changes that make the ongoing production of resource peripheries a distinctive socio-spatial formation under the global economy. Through a global and interdisciplinary perspective that uncovers ongoing political processes, socio-economic changes and socio-ecological dynamics at resource peripheries, this book argues that it is critical to take a more profound appraisal about the socio-spatial processes behind the contemporary way in which capitalism is appropriating and transforming nature.
Recent market turmoil, bank runs, global equities sell-off, and the
"credit crunch" have demonstrated the sophisticated and
interconnected nature of financial markets today-- seemingly
localized problems have quickly spread, putting at risk the
solvency of both local and global financial institutions. As these
markets are increasingly complex, interconnected, and embedded in
the daily lives of individuals, there is a pressing need to unravel
and understand the complexities and prospects of this new and
transformative social, political, and geographical paradigm.
Democracy, States, and the Struggle for Social Justice draws on the fields of geography, political theory, and cultural studies to analyze experiments with novel forms of democracy, highlighting the critical issue of the changing nature of the state and citizenship in the contemporary political landscape as they are buffeted by countervailing forces of corporate globalization and participatory politics. Using interesting case studies, the book explores these 3 main themes:
The book asks and answers: are participatory models of democracy viable alternatives in their own right or are they best understood as supplemental to traditional representative democracy? What are the conditions that give rise to the development of such models and are they equally effective at every scale; i.e., do they only realize their radical potential in particular, local places? A useful text in a broad range of advanced undergraduate courses including social movements, political sociology or geography, political philosophy. |
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