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Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Human geography
In conventional views, pastoralism was classified as a stage of civilization that needed to be abolished and transcended in order to reach a higher level of development. In this context, global approaches to modernize a rural society have been ubiquitous phenomena independent of ideological contexts. The 20th century experienced a variety of concepts to settle mobile groups and to transfer their lifestyles to modern perceptions. Permanent settlements are the vivid expression of an ideology-driven approach. Modernization theory captured all walks of life and tried to optimize breeding techniques, pasture utilization, transport and processing concepts. New insights into other aspects of pastoralism such as its role as an adaptive strategy to use marginal resources in remote locations with difficult access could only be understood as a critique of capitalist and communist concepts of modernization. In recent years a renaissance of modernization theory-led development activities can be observed. Higher inputs from external funding, fencing of pastures and settlement of pastoralists in new townships are the vivid expression of 'modern' pastoralism in urban contexts. The new modernization programme incorporates resettlement and transformation of lifestyles as to be justified by environmental pressure in order to reduce degradation in the age of climate change.
Difficult questions concerning the internal and external frontiers of the EU have emerged since the changes in the European political landscape after 1989. Dismantling controls at the frontiers between member states envisaged by the Single European Act and 'Europe 1992' has encountered difficulties and complications. An increase in the geographical extent of the Union, with the inclusion of Austria, Finland and Sweden, and the possible location of the external frontier further to the East have added to uncertainties about the future direction of the EU. Managing the external frontier has become increasingly complex. This volume analyses the cultural, political and legal consequences of dismantling controls at the internal frontiers and of measures to harden the external frontier. Among the central issues considered are the progress towards a European identity and changes in political identities within the EU, the extent to which the internal frontiers have become different in kind from the external frontiers, and the varying ways in which frontier issues are posed in different parts of the Union. These issues will profoundly influence the development of the European polity.
Urban refugees now account for over half the total number of refugees worldwide. Yet to date, far more research has been done on refugees living in camps and settlements set up expressly for them. This book provides crucial insights into the worldwide phenomenon of refugee flows into urban settings, repercussions for those seeking protection, and the agencies and organizations tasked to assist them. It provides a comparative exploration of refugees and asylum seekers in nine urban areas in Africa, Asia and Europe to examine issues such as status recognition, international and national actors, housing, education and integration. The book explores the relationship between refugee policies of international organisations and national governments and on the ground realities and demonstrates both the diverse of circumstances in which refugees live, and their struggle for recognition, protection and livelihoods.
Complex systems analysis has become a fascinating topic in modern research on non-linear dynamics, not only in the physical sciences but also in the life sciences and the social sciences. After the era of bifurcation theory, chaos theory, syn- getics, resilience analysis, network dynamics and evolutionary thinking, currently we observe an increasing interest in critical transitions of dynamic real-world systems in many disciplines, such as demography, biology, psychology, economics, earth sciences, geology, seismology, medical sciences, and so on. The relevance of this approach is clearly re?ected in such phenomena as traf?c congestion, ?nancial crisis, ethnic con?icts, eco-system breakdown, health failures, etc. This has prompted a world-wide interest in complex systems. Geographical space is one of the playgrounds for complex dynamics, as is witnessed by population movements, transport ?ows, retail developments, urban expansion, lowland ?ooding and so forth. All such dynamic phenomena have one feature in common: the low predictability of uncertain interrelated events occurring at different interconnected spatio-temporal scale levels and often originating from different disciplinary backgrounds. The study of the associated non-linear (fast and slow) dynamic transition paths calls for a joint research effort of scientists from different disciplines in order to understand the nature, the roots and the con- quences of unexpected or unpredictable changes in complex spatial systems.
Disasters, Gender and Access to Healthcare: Women in Coastal Bangladesh emphasizes women's experiences in cyclone disasters being confined with gendered identity and responsibilities in developing socio-economic conditions with minimum healthcare facilities. The study is situated in the coastal region of Bangladesh, considered as one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world. Bangladesh has been working on disaster management for a long time; however, considering gender perspective, the book reveals gaps in plans and raises serious questions about the successful implementation of healthcare strategies after disasters. The book also describes the pre-during-after disaster periods showing the full picture of a disaster attack in victims' own words. Case studies of seriously affected victims give the reader an opportunity to understand the situations created for women during a disaster attack in a remote area with poor transport and healthcare facilities. These unique research findings will contribute to the broader context of gender, disaster and health studies. This book will be helpful for university staff and students of different disciplines including Anthropology, Disaster Management, Gender Studies and Geography and South Asian Regional Studies and be invaluable reading for disaster managers, policy makers, aid workers, development partners, NGOs and government, especially in disaster-prone countries.
Investment in Latin America is continuously developing in complex patterns due to the region's increasing role in the global economy. The Handbook of Research on Economic Growth and Technological Change in Latin America helps readers to better understand the importance of Latin America in today's global economy. The book discusses the developments of investments involving Latin American Multinational Corporations ("Multilatinas") within the region. This investment is having profound influences on the state of business, government, and technological development in Latin America, which are all explored in this reference publication for use by researchers, scholar-practitioners, business executives, students, and academicians.
Since first emerging as an issue of concern in the late 1960s, fear of crime has become one of the most researched topics in contemporary criminology and receives considerable attention in a range of other disciplines including social ecology, social psychology and geography. Researchers looking the subject have consistently uncovered alarming characteristics, primarily relating to the behavioural responses that people adopt in relation to their fear of crime. This book reports on research conducted over the past eight years, in which efforts have been made to pioneer the combination of techniques from behavioural geography with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in order to map the fear of crime. The first part of the book outlines the history of research into fear of crime, with an emphasis on the many approaches that have been used to investigate the problem and the need for a spatially-explicit approach. The second part provides a technical break down of the GIS-based techniques used to map fear of crime and summarises key findings from two separate study sites. The authors describe collective avoidance behaviour in relation to disorder decline models such as the Broken Windows Thesis, the potential to integrate fear mapping with police-community partnerships and emerging avenues for further research. Issues discussed include fear of crime in relation to housing prices and disorder, the use of fear mapping as a means with which to monitor the impact of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) and fear mapping in transit environments.
This book presents accounts of fieldwork conducted in French Louisiana by anthropologists and folklorists between the 1970s and 2000 and looks at the personal, ethical, political, and scientific issues researchers need to confront and resolve when they attempt to explain a modern complex culture by using the traditional tools and methods of anthropology, participant observation, and interviews. The study casts a critical look at the core anthropological concepts of field, informants, and knowledge. In line with the ongoing reassessment of these concepts, it proposes that the field, identities, and knowledge acquired through research are not set, given entities but rather are a matter of construction. It shows how the personal profiles of the researchers (native or outsider, activist or academic, man or woman, black or white) contribute to frame the research. It illustrates the shifting of these identities during and after the research in response to personal, relational, and political circumstances. It also considers the application of the knowledge derived from research in the fields of tourism, cultural activism, and language policy in the context of the cultural renaissance experienced by Cajuns and Creoles over the past decades.
This title was first published in 2003. This volume is concerned with the European north above the Arctic Circle and its representations in Cultural Geography and International Relations. The chapters in the book deal with cultural, geographical and political imaginations of northern peoples and landscapes. Emphasis is placed on the triangle of and interrelationship between culture, geography and politics. The historical and contemporary variations of meaning assigned to the north point to real processes which need to be studied in their own right. To achieve this aim, the book does not plainly specify the sites and levels of discourses (be they academic, political or popular), but it does take into account the material circumstances making the context of the European north. Illustrated by a coherent set of specially written case studies, the volume explores issues such as history, literature, gender, folk culture, pictorial representations, environment and climate change and links these issues with the (geo-)politics of the region.
This book is the result of a three day workshop on "Evaluation in theory and practice in spatial planning" held in Ramsey Hall, University College London, in September 1996. Some 30 people from 8 different countries attended and 20 papers were presented. The majority of them now form the basis for this book. This occasion was the third on the topic, the two preceding having taken place in Umea in June 1992 and in Bari in 1994. Following these three meetings, we can now say that this small, industrious, international family really enjoy meeting up from time to time at each others places, in the presence of older members and new children, each one presenting his/her own recent experiences. It particularly enjoys exchanging views and arguing about the current state and the future of evaluation in spatial planning (all families have their vices ... ). It is also pleasing to see these experiences and discussions resulting in a book for those who could not attend and for the broader clan in the field. Not long time ago, but ages in the accelerated academic time scale, evaluation in planning established its own role and distinct features as an instrument for helping the decision-making process. Now this role and these features are exposed to major challenges. First, the evolution of planning theory has lead to the conception of new planning paradigms, based on theories of complexity and communicative rationality.
Much environmental activism is caught in a logic that plays science against emotion, objective evidence against partisan aims, and human interest against a nature that has intrinsic value. Radical activists, by contrast, play down the role of science in determining environmental politics, but read their solutions to environmental problems off fixed theories of domination and oppression. Both of these approaches are based in a modern epistemology grounded in the fundamental dichotomy between the human and the natural. This binary has historically come about through the colonial oppression of other, non-Western and often non-binary ways of knowing nature and living in the world. There is an urgent need for a different, decolonised environmental activist strategy that moves away from this epistemology, recognises its colonial heritage and finds a different ground for environmental beliefs and politics. This book analyses the arguments and practices of anti-GMO activists at three different sites - the site of science, the site of the Bt cotton controversy in India, and the site of global environmental protest - to show how we can move beyond modern/colonial binaries. It will do so in dialogue with Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, Maria Lugones, and Gayatri C. Spivak, as well as a broader range of postcolonial and decolonial bodies of thought.
Greenland and the International Politics of a Changing Arctic examines the international politics of semi-independent Greenland in a changing and increasingly globalised Arctic. Without sovereign statehood, but with increased geopolitical importance, independent foreign policy ambitions, and a solidified self-image as a trailblazer for Arctic indigenous peoples' rights, Greenland is making its mark on the Arctic and is in turn affected - and empowered - by Arctic developments. The chapters in this collection analyse how a distinct Greenlandic foreign policy identity shapes political ends and means, how relations to its parent state of Denmark is both a burden and a resource, and how Greenlandic actors use and influence regional institutional settings as well as foreign states and commercial actors to produce an increasingly independent - if not sovereign - entity with aims and ambitions for regional change in the Arctic. This is the first comprehensive and interdisciplinary examination of Greenland's international relations and how they are connected to wider Arctic politics. It will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in Arctic governance and security, international relations, sovereignty, geopolitics, paradiplomacy, indigenous affairs and anyone concerned with the political future of the Arctic.
Transdisciplinarity is a new way of scientifically meeting the challenges of sustainability. Indeed, interdisciplinary collaboration and co-operation with non-academic 'practice partners' is at the core of this; creating contextualised, socially relevant knowledge about complex real-world problems. Transdisciplinary Research and Sustainability breaks new ground by presenting transdisciplinary research in practice, drawing on recent advances by the vibrant transdisciplinary research communities in the German-speaking world. It describes methodological innovations developed to address wide-ranging contemporary issues including climate change adaptation, energy policy, sustainable agriculture and soil conservation. Furthermore, the authors reflect on the challenges involved in integrating non-academic actors in scientific research, on the tensions that arise in the encounter of theory and praxis, and on the inherently normative, political nature of sustainability research. Highlighting the need for academic institutions to be transformed to reflect transdisciplinarity, this timely volume will appeal to postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers interested in fields such as Sustainability Science, Transdisciplinary Studies and Philosophy of Science.
This book explores creative interdisciplinary and potentially transformative solutions to the current stalemate in contemporary water policy design. A more open policy conversation about water than exists at present is proposed - one that provides a space for the role of the imagination and is inclusive - of the arts and humanities, relevant stakeholders, including landholders and Indigenous peoples, as well as science, law and economics. Written for a wide audience, including practitioners and professional readers, as well as scholars and students, the book demonstrates the value of multiple disciplines, voices, perspectives, knowledges and different ways of relating to water. It provides a fresh and timely response to the urgent need for water policy that works to achieve sustainability, and may be better able to resolve complex environmental, social and cultural water issues. Utilising a broad range of evidentiary sources and case studies from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and elsewhere, the authors of this edited collection demonstrate how new ways of thinking and imagining water are not only possible but already practised, and growing in saliency and impact. The current dominance of narrower ways of conceptualising our relationship with water is critiqued, including market valuation and water privatisation, and more innovative alternatives are described, including those that recognise the importance of place-based stories and narratives, adopt traditional ecological knowledge and relational water appreciations, and apply cutting-edge behavioural and ecological systems science. The book highlights how innovative approaches drawing on a wide range of views may counter prevailing policy myopia, enable reflexive governance and transform water policy towards addressing water security questions and the broader challenges posed by the Anthropocene and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Exploring the development of the European Union, this book examines the ways in which it has been studied over fifty years from the vantage point of four disciplines, each side of the Atlantic, and both academic and practitioner perspectives. Drawing on contributions by some of the world's leading scholars in the field, it maps the past and present of both the EU and EU studies before setting out a provocative agenda for future work in the area.
This original book explores the importance of geographical processes for policies and professional practices related to childhood and youth. Contributors from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds explore how concepts such as place, scale, mobility and boundary-making are important for policies and practices in diverse contexts. Chapters present both comprehensive cutting-edge academic research and critical reflections by practitioners working in diverse contexts, giving the volume wide appeal. The focus on the role of geographical processes in policies and professional practices that affect young people provides new, critical insights into contemporary issues and debates. The contributions show how local and national concerns remain central to many youth programmes; they also highlight how youth policies are becoming increasingly globalised. Examples are taken from the UK, the Americas and Africa. The chapters are informed by and advance contemporary theoretical approaches in human geography, sociology, anthropology and youth work, and will be of interest to academics and higher-level students in those disciplines. The book will also appeal to policy-makers and professionals who work with young people, encouraging them to critically reflect upon the role of geographical processes in their own work.
In August 1989, a Summer Institute was held at the Academie van Bouwkunst, the seventeenth century home of Amsterdam's School of Architecture, Town Planning and Landscape. The meeting brought together experts in Geographical Information Systems from throughout the world to address an international audience of planners. The contents of this book reflect many of the themes that were presented and discussed at the conference. The Summer Institute, let alone this volume, would not have been possible without the support of the International Association for the Development and Management of Existing and New Towns (INTNAIVN), the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISoCaRP), The National Physical Planning Agency of the Netherlands (RPD) and the Berlage Studio. We wish to acknowledge the assistance provided by these organisations and by the various sponsors: The Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and Environment, the Municipality of Amsterdam, Logisterion b.v., ESRI, UNISYS, MABON b.v., SPSS, PRIME Computer Inc., PANDATA. The provision of hardware facilities by the various computer companies allowed immensely valuable 'hands on' experience to be gained by all the participants.
The book provides conceptual and empirical insights into the complex relationship between knowledge flows and regional growth in the EU. The author critically scrutinizes and enhances the RIS (Regional Innovation System) approach, discussing innovation as a technological, institutional and evolutionary process. Moreover, she advances the ongoing discourse on the role of space and technological proximity in the process of innovation and technological externalities. The book closes with an investigation of the role of technological change and knowledge spillovers in the dynamic growth and catching-up of EU regions. "
The concept of territorial stigma, as developed in large part by the urban sociologist Loic Wacquant, contends that certain groups of people are devalued, discredited and tainted by the reputation of the place where they reside. This book argues that this theory is more relevant and comprehensive than others that have been used to frame and understand ostracised neighbourhoods and their populations (for example segregation and the racialisation of place) and allows for an inclusive interpretation of the many spatial facets of marginalisation processes. Advancing conceptual understanding of how territorial stigmatisation and its components unfold materially as well as symbolically, this book presents a wide range of case studies from the Global South and Global North, including an examination of recent policy measures that have been applied to deal with the consequences of territorial stigmatisation. It introduces readers to territorial stigmatisation's strategic deployment but also illustrates, in a number of regional contexts, the attachments that residents at times develop for the stigmatised places in which they live and the potential counter-forces that are developed against territorial stigmatisation by a variety of different groups.
A] revealing reflection and interpretation upon the development of post-World War II Europe. It offers a vision of imposed borders and boundaries that have become familiar yet remain disturbing; such a dichotomy is explored in various ways in the essays to make a provocative and fascinating book. The book is especially strong in the combination of the empirical and theoretical, treating borders and boundaries at many different levels from the purely physical to the social, cultural and political, as well as the symbolic. It is]...a very welcome addition to the field." . Wendy Pullan, University of Cambridge The volume is interdisciplinary and broadly conceptualized yet it focuses on some key aspects that give the volume sufficient focus and depth. The quality of the contributions (including the substantive introduction) is consistently high... and] not merely a collection of pieces from various disciplines; instead many contributions speak to one another across individual disciplines, e.g., in a consideration of the ambivalent or contradictory effects of walls and boundaries-culturally, historically, and socially. . Friederike Eigler, Georgetown University How is it that walls, borders, boundaries-and their material and symbolic architectures of division and exclusion-engender their very opposite? This edited volume explores the crossings, permeations, and constructions of cultural and political borders between peoples and territories, examining how walls, borders, and boundaries signify both interdependence and contact within sites of conflict and separation. Topics addressed range from the geopolitics of Europe's historical and contemporary city walls to conceptual reflections on the intersection of human rights and separating walls, the memory politics generated in historically disputed border areas, theatrical explorations of border crossings, and the mapping of boundaries within migrant communities. Marc Silberman is Professor of German and Affiliate Professor in Theatre and Drama as well as Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has published extensively on twentieth and twenty-first century German literature, film, and theater. Karen E. Till is Lecturer of Cultural Geography at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and co-convener of the 'Mapping Spectral Traces' international network. She is author of "The New Berlin," co-editor of "Textures of Place," and working on a book project, "Wounded Cities." Janet Ward is Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma and author of "Post-Wall Berlin: Borders, Space and Identity" and "Weimar Surfaces: Urban Visual Culture in 1920s Germany." Her current work includes a co-edited collection on (trans)nationalism and the German city, and a book project on urban destruction and reconstruction.
This title was first published in 2000: The book analyses the development of arctic environmental cooperation since the late 1980s until the establishment of the Arctic Council in 1996. The study is based on the discourse analysis of statement, documents and interviews by the different actors in the cooperation. In this book, the problem of the environment is seen as a problem of order: it is a problem of ordering relations among related actors, of ordering priorities of action and of ordering relations between different institutional arrangements locally, regionally and internally. Three discourses were found in the cooperation: discourses of sovereignty, knowledge and development. In the discourse of sovereignty, the development of relations between state and indigenous peoples in terms of international environmental cooperation is central. In the discourse of knowledge, the different forms of knowledge and the role of different producers of knowledge in cooperation has been discussed. The discourse of development focuses on the idea of sustainable development and its applications in defining the future of the Circumpolar North and the activities of the Arctic Council. The arctic cooperation can be understood as a regional effort to make an order of sustainability into practice.
For the past half-century, the planning system has operated on the basis of a growth-dependence paradigm. It has been based on market-led urban development and has sought to provide community benefits from a share of development profits. However, we do not live in a world where growth can be taken for granted and we are more aware than previously of the implications for well-being and sustainability. This timely book provides a fresh analysis of the limitations of the growth-dependence planning paradigm. It considers alternative urban development models, ways of protecting and enhancing existing low value land uses and means of managing community assets within the built environment. In each case it spells out the role that a reformed planning system could play in establishing a new agenda for planning. The book will be of relevance to planning students, planning professionals and planning academics, as well as urban policy specialists more generally.
This book gives an interdisciplinary overview on urban ecology. Basic understanding of urban nature development and its social reception are discussed for the European Metropolitan Area of Berlin. Furthermore, we investigate specific consequences for the environment, nature and the quality of life for city dwellers due to profound changes such as climate change and the demographic and economic developments associated with the phenomena of shrinking cities. Actual problems of urban ecology should be discussed not only in terms of natural dimensions such as atmosphere, biosphere, pedosphere and hydrosphere but also in terms of social and cultural dimensions such as urban planning, residence and recreation, traffic and mobility and economic values. Our research findings focus on streets, new urban landscapes, intermediate use of brown fields and the relationships between urban nature and the well-being of city dwellers. Finally, the book provides a contribution to the international discussion on urban ecology.
Corruption, collusion and clientelism are pervasive legacies of Soviet rule in most successor states of the Soviet Union. This legacy has been a major obstacle to the development of viable democratic and market institutions. Analyzing the political and economic developments of Armenia and Georgia, this book demonstrates how systemic corruption undermines the rule of law which is crucial for democracy and a market economy. It argues that the tumultuous political transition of Georgia has created an anarchic system of corruption that is disastrous for economic development and people's welfare. In contrast, the Armenian government has maintained some control over the corrupt system, ameliorating the consequences of systemic corruption. |
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