This text focuses on the contemporary economic, social, geographical, environmental and political realities of the Caribbean region. Historical aspects of the Caribbean, such as slavery, the plantation system and plantocracy are explored in order to explain the contemporary nature of, and challenges faced by, the Caribbean. The book is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with: the foundations of the Caribbean, rural and urban bases of the contemporary Caribbean, and global restructuring and the Caribbean: industry, tourism and politics.

Coastal zones represent a frontline in the battle for sustainability, as coastal communities face unprecedented economic challenges. Coastal ecosystems are subject to overuse, loss of resilience and increased vulnerability. This book aims to interrogate the multi- scalar complexities in creating a more sustainable coastal zone. Sustainability transitions are geographical processes, which happen in situated, particular places. However, much contemporary discussion of transition is either aspatial or based on implicit assumptions about spatial homogeneity. This book addresses these limitations through an examination of socio- technological transitions with an explicitly spatial focus in the context of the coastal zone. The book begins by focusing on theoretical understandings of transition processes specific to the coastal zone and includes detailed empirical case studies. The second half of the book appraises governance initiatives in coastal zones and their efficacy. The authors conclude with an implicit theme of social and environmental justice in coastal sustainability transitions. Research will be of interest to practitioners, academics and decision- makers active in the sphere of coastal sustainability. The multi- disciplinary nature encourages accessibility for individuals working in the fields of Economic Geography, Regional Development, Public Policy and Planning, Environmental Studies, Social Geography and Sociology.

This book evaluates African Special Economic Zones from the perspective of learning from China's experiences with such Zones and the impact of Chinese policy and investment on African Zones. Utilising case studies of perceived successful Special Economic Zones in China, the book proposes the Chinese Model of Special Economic Zones as an evaluation and benchmarking tool against which African Special Economic Zones are considered. Applying several case studies on African Special Economic Zones, the book then details the competitiveness of African Special Economic Zones with a specific focus on attracting Chinese investors to these Zones. The economic, social and environmental impact of these zones are appraised. African Nations' efforts, or lack thereof, to enable successful Special Economic Zones are critically analysed. Finally, Special Economic Zones in Africa are compared against the Chinese Model; and an African Model of Special Economic Zones is proposed. Recommendations are presented to both African Nations' leadership and Chinese policymakers and investors as to how these Zones can be improved to enhance competitiveness and the attainment of the Zones' sustainable development objectives.

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.

This book focuses on the implementation of slum upgrading projects and the last generation of citywide programmes that define the future urban configuration of informal settlements, from a citywide perspective, in the Earth's tropical region. The book presents a study on regeneration experiences in Asia and Latin America and it identifies important points of connection and similarities between the two cases, while also determining that, compared to Asia, informality in Latin America is in its 'second generation.'

Contents:
Part I - Trends in Caribbean Tourism 1. Trends and circumstances in Caribbean tourism David Timothy Duval 2. Natural hedonism: the invention of Caribbean islands as tropical playgrounds Mimi Sheller 3. Global perspectives of Caribbean tourism Jerome L. McElroy Part II - Tourism Development in the Caribbean 4. Tourism development in the Caribbean: meaning and influences David Timothy Duval and Paul F. Wilkinson 5. Caribbean tourism policy and planning Paul F. Wilkinson 6. Institutional arrangements for tourism in small twin-island states of the Caribbean Leslie-Ann Jordan 7. Tourism and supranationalism in the Caribbean Dallen J. Timothy 8. Historic sites, material culture and tourism in the Caribbean islands William C. Found 9. Global currents: cruise ships in the Caribbean sea Robert E. Wood 10. Manifestations of ecotourism in the Caribbean David B. Weaver 11. Tourism, environmental conservation and management and local agriculture in the Eastern Caribbean: is there an appropriate, sustainable future for them? Dennis Conway 12. Community participation in Caribbean tourism: problems and prospects Simon Milne and Gordon Ewing 13. Tourism businesses in the Caribbean: operating realities K. Michael Haywood and Chandana Jayawardena 14. What makes a resort complex? Reflections on the production of tourism space in a Caribbean resort complex Tim Coles 15. Hucksters and homemakers: gender responses to opportunities in the tourism market in Carriacou, Grenada Beth Mills Part III - Future Prospects 16. Postcolonial markets: new geographic spaces for tourism Janet Henshall Momsen 17. Future prospects for tourism in the Caribbean David Timothy Duval

The Caribbean is one of the premier tourist destinations in the world. Changes in the travel patterns, markets and traveller motivations have brought considerable growth and dramatic change to the region's tourism sector. This book brings together a high calibre team of international researchers to provide an up-to-date assessment of the scope of tourism and the nature of tourism development in the Caribbean. It is a valuable resource for students of Tourism and Caribbean Studies, as well as governments, and national and regional tourism offices.

Clusters of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have to adapt continually to a fast changing environment. This new book, containing contributions on countries ranging from Italy and Mexico to China and India, recognises the disparity between conditions in these countries and poses some interesting questions about what might be termed post cluster globalisation. This book will be of interest to students, academics and policy makers in the fields of economic geography, international business and entrepreneurship.

Although economists have long recognised industrial districts as one of the key features of many economies, it is only recently that attention has been focused on the region as an effective means of generating accurate insights into the larger picture of economic performance. This renewed interest in regional issues has also placed at centre stage the role played by networks as a principal organisational feature of the local business community, providing scholars with a rich topic for investigation and debate. Recent work has shown that universal generalisations concerning the impact of networking on the performance of industrial clusters lack credibility, highlighting the consequent need to compare the role played by business networks in a variety of regions. Using a copious range of research material examining several British regions, this volume poses a series of fundamental questions about the nature of industrial clusters and networks. Particular attention is paid to identifying the basic characteristics of a network, outlining how they evolved in key industrial clusters, and assessing their impact on industrial performance, both regionally and nationally. The durability of such networks is another key thread that runs through the essays, prompting comparison with industrial clusters in Britain and abroad. These are issues which stimulate discussion on a wide range of factors within the disciplines of business, economic and social history.

This exhaustive study from an experienced and respected set of editors and authors looks at the impact that universities have on their surroundings, with particular reference to regional development. With contributions from such leading scholars as Peter Maskell and Gunnar Törnqvist, this book will be of great interest to students and academics involved in regional economics, economic geography and innovation studies.

The revised edition of Southeast Asia provides a grounded account of how people in the region are responding to - and being affected by - the changes sweeping through the region. The 'growth' or 'miracle' economies of Southeast Asia, after having achieved one of the most remarkable transformations in recent history, suffered a sharp downturn in fortunes with the Asian economic crisis of 1997. At the same time, the transitional economies of Indochina have undergone a deep process of market reform. This book unpicks the 'miracle' and the 'crisis' and elaborates on the process of reform.
Southeast Asia blends conceptual interpretations of the regions growth (and fall from growth) with case study material drawn from across the region. It uses a wide range of social science literature and presents the complex arguments deployed in an accessible manner. The book challenges our understanding of patterns of change in rural and urban areas of the region, and unpicks the myriad ways in which individuals and households construct their livelihoods. Chapter summaries and annotated further reading are included.

Contents:
Part I Southeast Asian Development: The conceptual landscape of dissent 1. Chasing after the wind: Of miracles and mirages 2. Thinking alternatively about development in Southeast Asian Part II Marginal People and Marginal Lives: The 'excluded' 3. The geography of exclusion: The view from above 4. The experience of exclusion Part III Change and Interactions in the Rural and Urban Worlds 5. New rural worlds: More than soil 6. Factory worlds 7. Rural-urban interactions Part IV Chasing the Wind: Modernization and development in Southeast Asia 8. Chasing the wind

In recent years, Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) have been a key issue both in the scientific community and in public debates. This is due to their profound implications for rural development, local sustainability, and bio-economics. This edited collection discusses what the main determinants of the participation of operators - both consumers and producers - in AFNs are, what the conditions for their sustainability are, what their social and environmental effects are, and how they are distributed geographically. Further discussions include the effect of AFNs in structuring the food chain and how AFNs can be successfully scaled up. The authors explicitly take an interdisciplinary approach to analyse AFNs from different perspectives, using as an example the Italian region of Piedmont, a particularly interesting case study due to the diffusion of AFNs in the area, as well as due to the fact that it was in this region that the 'Slow Food' movement originated.

Through a richly detailed examination of the practices of spinning yarn from the fleece of llamas and alpacas, Earth, Water, Fleece and Fabric explores the relationship that herders of the present and of the past have maintained with their herd animals in the Andes. Dransart juxtaposes an ethnography of an Aymara herding community, based on more than ten years fieldwork in Isluga in the Chilean highlands, with archaeological material from excavations in the Atacama desert.
Impeccably researched, this book is the first systematic study to set the material culture of pastoral communities against an understanding of the long-term effects of herding practices.

Related link: http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources .html?dransart
eBook available with sample pages: 0203219732

Reading Retail captures contemporary debates on the geography of retailing and consumption spaces. It is constructed around a series of 'readings' from key works, and is designed to encourage readers to develop a sense of engagement with the rapidly evolving debates in this field. More than 60 edited readings are integrated into the text, providing a guided route map through the literature and into the study of the geographies of retailing and consumption. The volume also introduces readers to the exciting and interdisciplinary developments unfolding in the 'new retail geography', drawing on up-to-the-minute research material from areas ranging from anthropology to business studies, and tackling issues as diverse as retail internationalization and e-commerce. Reading Retail is unique in bringing together a huge range of perspectives on retailing and consumption spaces and will provide a key source text for students in this field.

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.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203201760

This title was first published in 2003. Development is a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon, driven by the expansion of one or more sectors and their influence on the others. It is the outcome of local interdependencies among firms, households and institutions which give rise to specific territorial patterns of local systems. Policies of development cannot therefore restrict themselves to undifferentiated intervention from the centre to the periphery, but must be able to stimulate and sustain endogenous bottom-up growth by means of specific programmes. Thus, individuals and organizations, public or private interact, take decisions and devise strategies in a context that is simultaneously co-operative and competitive. The first in a series, this volume brings together a team of leading international social scientists from the IGU study group on local development. Illustrated by a wide range of global case studies, it analyses what knowledge is required for industrial production and how best to organize this knowledge, embedded as it is in physical, human and social capital. It focuses on the formation of social capital and the various forms into which this may evolve, in particular, the sets of institutions which regulate relationships within and among firms. It provides an understanding of how such institutions encourage co-operation in conditions of uncertainty, overcoming suspicion and caution, managing participation and ensuring compliance with agreements by applying sanctions.

Contents:
1:Business and Environment; 2:The Changing Relationships Through Time, 3:Environmental Business Perspectives - assets, costs and externalities; 4:Environmental Business Necessities - the pressures which cannot be ignored; 5:Environmental Business Opportunities - business becomes proactive; 6:Primary Industries - using resources directly; 7:Secondary Industries - adding value and carrying the burden; 8:Tertiary Industries - the hidden environmental issues; 9:Enviromental Business; 10:Business and Environment - the future for the relationships.

This introductory level text examines how businesses and the environment interact. It is ideal for students with no previous knowledge of business studies. It examines in depth the ways in which business, industry, the physical environment, environmentalism and social change have evolved alongside each other. The authors use boxed case studies to highlight how business practice and the environment interact at levels from local to global, with examples from multi-national companies, government bodies, national charities and local enterprise. The book also contains a large number of informative diagrams. The case studies include:
* Shell Oil's environmental policy
* railways and the industrial revolution
* the British National Trust's business enterprises
* Sainsbury's approach to organic foods
* Australia's landcare scheme
* changing trends in retailing
* Brent Spar
* big game hunting and conservation.

Business Statistics of the United States is a comprehensive and practical collection of data from as early as 1913 that reflects the nation's economic performance. It provides several years of annual, quarterly, and monthly data in industrial and demographic detail including key indicators such as: gross domestic product, personal income, spending, saving, employment, unemployment, the capital stock, and more. Business Statistics of the United States is the best place to find historical perspectives on the U.S. economy. Of equal importance to the data are the introductory highlights, extensive notes, and figures for each chapter that help users to understand the data, use them appropriately, and, if desired, seek additional information from the source agencies. Business Statistics of the United States provides a rich and deep picture of the American economy and contains approximately 3,500 time series in all. The data are predominately from federal government sources including: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System Bureau of Economic Analysis Bureau of Labor Statistics Census Bureau Employment and Training Administration Energy Information Administration Federal Housing Finance Agency U.S. Department of the Treasury

With a population of 15 million persons in 1990, Mexico City is one of the world's largest cities. It is a famous center of civilizations and culture and one of the economic capitals of the Americas, but it also has serious social and economic problems, including large impoverished zones, severe environmental degradation, crime, and overpopulation.This book describes and analyzes growth, change, and spatial patterns in Mexico City, looking at urbanization, population, marriage and fertility, health and mortality, migration, environment and housing, social characteristics, the economy, labor force, and corporate structure. Applying modern techniques of geographic information systems and spatial analysis, the authors reveal many previously unknown or unrecognized trends and patterns. In a capstone chapter, they summarize the spatial patterns in a series of cluster analyses that identify distinctive zones within the metropolis--a prosperous core, surrounding complex ring patterns, an impoverished zone, and semi-rural arms. They also compare the pattern of Mexico City's cluster zones to the classical and developmental literature on cities. In closing, the authors suggest government policies that would foster optimal future development of an even larger metropolis.This book addresses a topic of growing importance. The United Nations predicts the emergence of many more giant cities worldwide over the next quarter century, most of which will appear in the developing world. "Mexico Megacity" is a milestone work that increases our knowledge about one developing world megacity while offering analytical tools for studying others.

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.


eBook available with sample pages: 020302186X

Ethnicity has become one of the most studied human dimensions in social and biomedical sciences over the past decade. However, there are important shortcomings in the means available to researchers to define and classify human group difference in past, as well as contemporary populations. Personal naming conventions usually adhere to unwritten social norms and customs that with time end up producing distinctive cultural, ethnic, linguistic, religious and geographic patterns in name distributions. This book follows the fascinating journey of personal names across the world, using maps and networks to identify alternative combinations of ethnic and geographic origins in contemporary population groups and neighbourhoods. This innovative approach allows population researchers to build more nuanced understandings about the history and immediate future of our contemporary multicultural societies, at a time in which the predominant political discourse and public debates are challenging increasing population diversity in the developed world.

This book aims to analyze Lesotho's prospects for economic advancement, and examines the influence of the policies and economic development of South Africa on Lesotho's own potential for development.

"This book is to be highly commended for the fact that it not only informs but stimulates. It will be surprising if it does not inspire a wide range of research by geographers in general, and economic geographers in particular, into one of the most overreaching and dynamic forms of economic activity: the major face and force of contemporary tourism" Erlet Cater, University of Reading; Information Technology and Tourism Vol 2 1999