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Books > Earth & environment > Geography
This book examines the relationship between national identity and
foreign policy discourses on Russia in Germany, Poland and Finland
in the years 2005–2015. The case studies focus on the Nord Stream
pipeline controversy, the 2008 Russian-Georgian war, the
post-electoral protests in Russian cities in 2011–2012 and the
Ukraine crisis. Siddi argues that divergent foreign policy
narratives of Russia are rooted in different national identity
constructions. Most significantly, the Ukraine crisis and the Nord
Stream controversy have exposed how deep-rooted and different
perceptions of the 'Russian Other' in EU member states are still
influential and lead to conflicting national agendas for foreign
policy towards Russia.
This book explores recreational uses of consumer drones from the
lenses of media ecology, mobile communication, mobilities research,
and science and technology studies. In this provocative
ethnography, Julia M. Hildebrand discusses camera drones as mobile
media for meaningful play. She thus widens perspectives onto the
flying camera as foremost unmanned aircraft, spying tool, or
dangerous toy towards a more comprehensive understanding of its
potentials. How should we situate drone practices in recreational
spaces? What ways of seeing, moving, and being do hobby drones open
up? Across chapters about drone geography, communication, mobility,
visuality, and human-machine relations, Aerial Play introduces
novel frameworks for drone affordances, such as communication on
the fly, disembodied mobilities, auratic vertical play, and
drone-mindedness. In the mobile companionship with her own drone,
Hildebrand contributes an innovative "auto-technographic" method
for the self-reflective study of media and mobility. Ultimately,
her grounded and aerial fieldwork illuminates new technological,
mobile, visual, and social relations in everyday spaces.
This book provides the first wide-ranging account of the impact of
the COVID-19 pandemic in two contrasting island regions - the
Caribbean and the Pacific - and in several islands and island
states. It traces the complexity of effects and responses, at
different scales, through the first critical year. Written by a
range of scholars and practitioners working in the region the book
focuses on six key themes: public health; the economies (notably
the collapse of tourism, the revival of local agriculture and
fishing, and the rebirth of self-reliance, and even barter); the
rescue by remittances; social tensions and responses; public
policy; and future 'bubbles' and regional connections. Even with
marine borders that excluded the virus all island states were
affected by COVID-19 because of a considerable dependence on
tourism - prompting urgent challenges for governance, economic
management and development, as small states sought to balance lives
against livelihoods in search of revitalisation or even a 'new
normal'.
The Pacific has long been a space of conquest, exploration,
fantasy, and resistance. Pacific Islanders had established
civilisations and cultures of travel well before European explorers
arrived, initiating centuries of upheaval and transformation. The
twentieth century, with its various wars fought in and over the
Pacific, is only the most recent era to witness military strife and
economic competition. While "Asia Pacific" and "Pacific Rim" were
late twentieth-century terms that dealt with the importance of the
Pacific to the economic, political, and cultural arrangements that
span Asia and the Americas, a new term has arisen-the transpacific.
In the twenty-first century, U.S. efforts to dominate the ocean are
symbolized not only in the "Pacific pivot" of American policy but
also the development of a Transpacific Partnership. This
partnership brings together a dozen countries-not including
China-in a trade pact whose aim is to cement U.S. influence. That
pact signals how the transpacific, up to now an academic term, has
reached mass consciousness. Recognising the increasing importance
of the transpacific as a word and concept, this anthology proposes
a framework for transpacific studies that examines the flows of
culture, capital, ideas, and labour across the Pacific. These flows
involve Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific Islands. The
introduction to the anthology by its editors, Janet Hoskins and
Viet Thanh Nguyen, consider the advantages and limitations of
models found in Asian studies, American studies, and Asian American
studies for dealing with these flows. The editors argue that
transpacific studies can draw from all three in order to provide a
critical model for considering the geopolitical struggle over the
Pacific, with its attendant possibilities for inequality and
exploitation. Transpacific studies also sheds light on the cultural
and political movements, artistic works, and ideas that have arisen
to contest state, corporate, and military ambitions. In sum, the
transpacific as a concept illuminates how flows across the Pacific
can be harnessed for purposes of both domination and resistance.
The anthology's contributors include geographers (Brenda S. A.
Yeoh, Weiqiang Lin), sociologists (Yen Le Espiritu, Hung Cam Thai),
literary critics (John Carlos Rowe, J. Francisco Benitez, Yunte
Huang, Viet Thanh Nguyen), and anthropologists (Xiang Biao, Heonik
Kwon, Nancy Lutkehaus, Janet Hoskins), as well as a historian
(Laurie J. Sears), and a film scholar (Akira Lippit). Together
these contributors demonstrate how a transpacific model can be
deployed across multiple disciplines and from varied locations,
with scholars working from the United States, Singapore, Japan and
England. Topics include the Cold War, the Chinese state, U.S.
imperialism, diasporic and refugee cultures and economies, national
cinemas, transpacific art, and the view of the transpacific from
Asia. These varied topics are a result of the anthology's purpose
in bringing scholars into conversation and illuminating how
location influences the perception of the transpacific. But
regardless of the individual view, what the essays gathered here
collectively demonstrate is the energy, excitement, and insight
that can be generated from within a transpacific framework.
Dokuchaev carried out most of his research in Ukraine. His student
and friend, Volodymyr Vernadsky, went on to create
trans-disciplinary environmental sciences and the concept of Earth
as a living organism, famously taken up by James Lovelock. That
spring of ideas still flows and the researches captured in this
volume are relevant to present-day problems, and not only in
Ukraine. Soils have always been under stress but, in the
Anthropocene, mankind is in the driving seat. As a sequel to Soil
Science Working for a Living: Applications of soil science to
present-day problems, we consider issues of policy as well as soil
genesis, attributes and functions in various environments, natural
and man-made. We consider human impacts on the soil cover through
its use and misuse, highlight methods of research and assessment of
soil quality, and the threats of soil degradation. The
distinguished contributors also describe and propose various
options for evaluation and remediation of degraded soils, drawing
on the latest methods of modelling and cartography as well as
long-term field experiments and long experience. The book will be
invaluable to researchers and practitioners in soil science
including graduate and post-graduate education, academics and
professionals.
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