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Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Human geography
This book provides an outstanding collection of interdisciplinary and international essays examining the food-place relationship. It explores such topics as the history of food and agriculture, the globalization and localization of food, and the role of place in defining the broader societal consequences of this ever-changing phenomena.
This book is devoted to the cultural and biological dimensions and values of landscapes, linking the concepts of biodiversity, landscape and culture and presenting an essential approach for landscape analysis, interpretation and sustainable dynamics. Early chapters explore the concepts and values of biocultural landscapes, before addressing the methodology to identify the relationship between biological and cultural diversity. The volume continuous with a series of case studies and with an exploration of the key role of biocultural diversity in contemporary landscape ecology. Readers will learn the importance of landscapes for different fields of natural and human sciences and are confronted to the trans-disciplinary nature of the landscape concept itself. A hierarchical approach to landscapes, in which they are composed of interacting (eco)systems, is shown to be essential in recognizing their emergent properties. In this work, the biocultural values of landscapes are explored through their diversity in geographical scopes, methodological approaches and conceptual assumptions. Authors from Asia, Europe and North-America present diverse research experiences and views on biocultural landscapes, their pattern, conservation and management. Landscape ecologists will find this work particularly appealing, as well as anyone with an interest in sustainable landscape development, nature conservation or cultural heritage management. This volume is the outcome of a symposium on Biodiversity in Cultural Landscapes, organized in the framework of the 8th IALE World Congress, held in Beijing in 2011."
This volume comprises a selection of key papers which map out the latest developments in various aspects of spatial economics and economic geography. Edited by a leading authority in the field, this collection brings together papers which reflect both the depth of analysis and also the diversity of the different lines of enquiry regarding issues of Innovation and Geography, Cities and Clustering, Labour and Land Markets, and Empirics. Together these seminal pieces represent the 'state-of-the-art' in the field of spatial economics and economic geography and therefore provide an ideal base on which further analyses will build. Along with an original introduction by Professor McCann, this volume will be of relevance to academics, researchers and students interested in the field of spatial economics and economic geography.
This book investigates the socio-economic impacts of Climate Change in the Asia-Pacific region. The authors put forward a strategy and action plans that can enhance the capacity of government agencies and non-governmental organizations to reduce the negative impacts of climate change. The needs and interests of critical and neglected groups are highlighted throughout the book, alongside the need for improving knowledge management on climate change. The case studies presented offer regional analyses for countries such as Australia, Bangladesh, China, Fiji, India, Mongolia, Nepal and the Philippines and cover issues such as livelihood vulnerability and displacement, climate migration, macroeconomic impacts, urban environmental governance and disaster management.
The revival of the region of east-central Europe known as 'Mitteleuropa' began in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. For Germany, 'Mitteleuropa' became a renewed geopolitical concept. Since 1990 Mitteleuropa has increasingly become a region of German economic engagement. However, German elites failed however to develop a coherent political approach to that region while simultaneously conducting an eclectic Mitteleuropa policy outside a broader framework of foreign policy. This book traces Germany's Mitteleuropa politics and puts them into an historical context and into a framework for future foreign policy.
This timely book provides a methodological guide for how to conduct and theorize research in human-animal studies. In response to critiques of the anthropomorphic slant to human-animal research, and the increasing political relevance of animals in contemporary environmental debates, this book emphasises methods which bring to light the animal side of multi-species encounters. Drawing from the interdisciplinary strength of human-animal studies, this book contains contributions from practitioners and scholars working in sociology, anthropology, ethology and geography. Each chapter uses a case-study approach to present a theoretical framework and empirical application of cutting-edge methods in human-animal studies, from creative writing in multi-species ethnographies, to visual methods like videography and body mapping. Organized in three parts: theorizing; collaborating; visualizing, the book equips readers with methodological tools to conduct human-animal studies research attentive to animal lives. Furthermore, chapters reflect on the opportunities, limitations, and ethical considerations of research that seeks to understand our more-than-human worlds. The book is aimed towards undergraduate and graduate students in human-animal studies, and scholars investigating human-animal relations. It will also be of interest to practitioners and policy makers who engage with conservation, wildlife management, or the human-animal interface of urban and regional planning.
Artistic practices have long been disturbing the relationships between art and space. They have challenged the boundaries of performer/spectator, of public/private, introduced intervention and installation, ephemerality and performance, and constantly sought out new modes of distressing expectations about what is construed as art. But when we expand the world in which we look at art, how does this change our understanding of critical artistic practice? This book presents a global perspective on the relationship between art and the city. International and leading scholars and artists themselves present critical theory and practice of contemporary art as a politicised force. It extends thinking on contemporary arts practices in the urban and political context of protest and social resilience and offers the prism of a 'critical artscape' in which to view the urgent interaction of arts and the urban politic. The global appeal of the book is established through the general topic as well as the specific chapters, which are geographically, socially, politically and professionally varied. Contributing authors come from many different institutional and anti-institutional perspectives from across the world. This will be valuable reading for those interested in cultural geography, urban geography and urban culture, as well as contemporary art theorists, practitioners and policymakers.
This book explores the intangible human capital which international migrants bring with them and develop further when working and living abroad, drawing on case studies and original data from Central Europe and Mexico-USA. The book demonstrates that despite the fact that many international migrants might be working in their destination countries at a level below their formal qualifications, or else might be formally unskilled, but with practical non-validated skills, they can still acquire and enhance considerable informal human capital in the form of mind skills, soft skills, maker skills and life skills. The book analyses how migration-impacted informal human capital (MigCap) is acquired and enhanced as a result of international migration and what the opportunity and constraint structures are for their acquisitions and transfers. Adopting a comprehensive perspective, the book investigates how migration-impacted informal human capital is transferred by migrants between localities and areas of human actions and activities. Moving beyond the focus on migration as a source of economic capital, this book demonstrates that learning by observing, communicating and doing with others, embedded in social relations can facilitate the enhancement of intangible human capital among both skilled and unskilled migrants. It will be of interest to researchers of migration, sociology, economics, management and business studies, and other related social science disciplines.
This book analyzes the social capital of the growing knowledge economy, from both theoretical and empirical points of view. The theoretical section discusses social capital as an economic concept, developing a theory of the social capital of the enterprise. The empirical section compares aspects of the social capital of three different socio-economic systems: the US, Japan and Sweden. The book discusses a number of issues for further research.
In the era of big data, this book explores the new challenges of urban-rural planning and management from a practical perspective based on a multidisciplinary project. Researchers as contributors to this book have accomplished their projects by using big data and relevant data mining technologies for investigating the possibilities of big data, such as that obtained through cell phones, social network systems and smart cards instead of conventional survey data for urban planning support. This book showcases active researchers who share their experiences and ideas on human mobility, accessibility and recognition of places, connectivity of transportation and urban structure in order to provide effective analytic and forecasting tools for smart city planning and design solutions in China.
In dictionary form, an almanac of world history taking the place name or territory as its starting point. It links the past to the present by geography, and lists every significant political entity in history. The text is an encyclopaedic guide to the history of nations, and each entry falls into one of the following categories: extinct states and empires provinces of extinct and existing states ancient and modern regions nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples and nations modern states Entries for nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples are also included together with their origins and their effect on established political entities. A number of maps are included to illustrate politico-geographical change. This is a detailed text, listing changes in world events up to the current year and gives interesting insight into current areas of conflict like the Balkans.
The first edition of Spatial Divisions of Labour rapidly became a classic. It had enormous influence on thinking about uneven development, the nature of economic space, and the conceptualisation of place arguing for an approach embedding all these issues in a notion of spatialised social relations. This second edition includes a new first chapter and an extensive additional concluding essay addressing key issues in the debates and controversies which followed initial publication.
In this thought provoking book, Leonare Loeb Adler threads together 26 empirical studies that originated in diverse geographical areas. These studies present a comparison and greater understanding of the behavior of people living in a variety of different cultures. The focus on the book is well expressed in Dr. Adler's introduction in which she states that cross-cultural research recognizes that while the discovery of differences may be significant, the findings of similarities provide even more meaningful information. This book focuses on a variety of current cross-cultural and cross-ethic issues, which are pertinent to specific ages and stages in a life-span perspective. The broad interests and common concerns discussed are shared by people everywhere. Students and scholars in all the political and social science disciplines will find "Cross-Cultural Studies in Human Development" a source of stimulating ideas. The book begins with a focus on childhood issues, including a Piagetian cognitive study in a Third World country. A report on a new test which assesses early and late stages of development in young school children of different cultures is followed by a chapter discussing applied behavior analysis in dealing with children in the classroom. In addition, there is a chapter on social concerns in childhood development. The second part of this book studies normal as well as handicapped adolescents in different cultures and presents detailed discussions on current issues such as therapeutic management of drug addiction as well as moral development. Part Three focuses on adulthood. The contributors address a wide range of topics including gender issues, attitudes toward extended family members, filial obligations to the elderly, and coming to terms with the death of a parent. Studies of topics important to the elderly complete this book's life-span perspective. The final section examines friendship and social support among old people in cross-cultural and cross-ethnic comparisons. Other chapters deal with disabilities and depression among the elderly, as well as a study of caregivers and counselors.
In Designs for the Pluriverse Arturo Escobar presents a new vision of design theory and practice aimed at channeling design's world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing that are deeply attuned to justice and the Earth. Noting that most design-from consumer goods and digital technologies to built environments-currently serves capitalist ends, Escobar argues for the development of an "autonomous design" that eschews commercial and modernizing aims in favor of more collaborative and placed-based approaches. Such design attends to questions of environment, experience, and politics while focusing on the production of human experience based on the radical interdependence of all beings. Mapping autonomous design's principles to the history of decolonial efforts of indigenous and Afro-descended people in Latin America, Escobar shows how refiguring current design practices could lead to the creation of more just and sustainable social orders.
The Institutional Position of Seaports deals with the logic and functioning of international seaport administration. This volume not only contains interesting reading for public and private port administrators and managers but can offer by its international comparisons relevant insights for the deregulation, privatisation, liberalisation and deconcentration of former government duties. Every seaport hosts different port activities in which public and private actors interact in changing relations. There is a permanent question of how responsibilities among public port administrators and the private users of the port have been divided and institutionally anchored. The unique model of analysis as used in this research has been built up by the distinction in four different control relations between state and market. By means of this institutional model the division of responsibilities for nautical control, port planning and port services can be determined. The reader can also learn via this model about the specific conditions that are needed to activate the learning capabilities of the different port activities. The model of analysis can be applied to every seaport in the world. Audience: This book is essential for everyone who is in a public or private managing or policy-making position in a seaport. It can also be of great help to students in disciplines like maritime economics, strategic management, social geography and public administration; for example, to make them more aware of the specific role divisions and mechanisms between state and market in international seaports.
It is a commonly-voiced opinion that opportunities for mobility undermine family in modern industrialized societies. Family and Intimate Mobilities challenges this assumption. Drawing on theoretical developments in mobilities, family practices and personal life and empirical studies of both individuals and families on the move, the book develops a more integrated approach to family mobility. This account considers how individual mobility over the life course is bound up with the formation and dissolving of intimate mobilities as well as how collective forms of mobility, from moving house, going on holiday and the school run, also sustain family life. The book considers how mobility is not just about bringing people together but how it also allows for time apart. Yet not all mobility is realized or chosen, and intimate mobilities can either be forced or entered into out of sense of obligation. In rejecting the assumption that mobility necessarily undermines family life, the book also resists any attempt to provide a grand narrative of social change of family mobility, but foregrounds the diversity of family practices and mobility.
This book presents an analysis of why some large infrastructure projects are delayed or compromised and offers important insights into the better delivery of future projects. It provides an important reaction to the ambitious EURO315 billion investment plan devised by the European Commission, wherein Europe's infrastructure is a key investment target. Germany is adopted as a focus, as Europe's largest economy, and a nation that has seen significant delays and tensions in the delivery of key infrastructure projects. The contributions to this volume demonstrate various patterns for infrastructure assets and illustrate how factors such as poor project governance, early planning mistakes, inappropriate risk management and unforeseen technological challenges influence delivery. The in-depth case studies on the Berlin Brandenburg Airport, the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, and offshore wind parks show how project delivery can face massive problems, and illuminating solutions are offered to these problems. Overall, the case of Germany also offers the opportunity to assess various new forms of project delivery, such as public-private partnerships (PPP), and the risks and opportunities of ambitious first-mover 'pioneer' projects. The book will be of great interest for scholars and upper-level students of human geography, business and management, as well as policy makers.
Landscape modelling integrates the differing perspectives of the many disciplines that deal with the landscape. It is motivated not only by the desire for scientific understanding, but also by the real-time demands of 21st century postindustrial society, which include the twin imperatives of stabilizing damaged ecosystems on the one hand, and finding effective ways to use the landscape on the other. The discipline has the specific goal of designing and assessing future scenarios of landscape development, while not losing sight of its past history, both ecological and socio-cultural. This book encompasses the interrelated disciplines of geography, landscape ecology and geoinformatics, and by drawing on their theories and methodologies introduces the concept of a living landscape with human action an inseparable part of its evolution. It offers researchers and decision-makers a number of ideas on how our landscape can best be utilized. The content reflects the need for sustainable landscape development, at the same time as considering long-term continuity as a major condition which enables us to maintain the diversity and multifunctionality of landscapes at regional and macro-regional scales. Employing advanced terminology and methods, this book provides specific results especially for scientists and landscape professionals.
This open access monograph provides an overview of the everyday lives of undocumented migrants, thereby focusing on housing, employment, social networks, healthcare, migration trajectories as well as their use of the internet and social media. Although the book's empirical focus is Finland, the themes connect the latter to broader geographical scales, reaching from global migration issues to the EU asylum policies, including in the post-2015 situations and during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as from national, political, and societal issues regarding undocumented migrants to the local challenges, opportunities, and practices in municipalities and communities. The book investigates how one becomes an undocumented migrant, sometimes by failing the asylum process. The book also discusses research ethics and provides practical guidelines and reflects on how to conduct quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research about undocumented migrants. Finally, the book addresses emerging research topics regarding undocumented migrants. Written in an accessible and engaging style the book is an interesting read for students, scholars, policymakers, and practitioners.
This book deploys the concept of 'audiovisual tourism promotion' to account for the promotional functions performed by a vast array of diverse media texts including tourism films, feature films, digital videos conceived for online circulation, video games and TV commercials. From this point of view, this volume fills a major gap in the literature by providing the first comprehensive critical overview of audiovisual tourism promotion as a distinct media field. In this book, the study of audiovisual tourism promotion is characterised by an interdisciplinary approach which combines film studies, media studies, human geography, sociology, tourism studies, history, postcolonial and gender studies. This book will appeal to a wide range of students and scholars from different disciplines.
Connecting Practices develops a distinctive method of conceptualising significant trends and global issues including environmental sustainability and inequalities in wealth and health, arguing that these are outcomes of the ways in which social practices interact and combine across space and time. Engaging with the question of how connections are made between practices and how past and present combinations make some futures more likely than others, this book brings practice theory to bear on large problems in society. Richly illustrated with examples from the spreading of germs to the history of shipping containers, this powerful analysis of how societies hang together and how they change will appeal to scholars and students of sociology and social theory.
This book presents the outcome of the Towards Sustainable Land Use in Asia (SLUAS) project, which was the pilot undertaking for development in a series of projects on land use. Monsoon Asia, with its huge and still increasing population and rapid socioeconomic changes, is regarded as a major hot spot of global change in general and of land use change in particular. The major issues include urbanization, rural development, land-related problems such as food problems, and disasters in the context of global change and sustainability. Future Earth, the new international research framework established by International Council for Science (ICSU), the International Social Science Council (ISSC), and other international academic or funding organizations for a sustainable world, has chosen the Global Land Project (GLP) as one of the first such international projects it has endorsed that originated from International Geosphere/Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and/or International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP). This endorsement is a clear indication of the importance of the issues related to land use and its changes. Land use change is an essential driving force of environmental change, a result of socioeconomic and environmental changes, and is a major environmental change itself. Because of this complex and multifaceted nature and the difficulties in obtaining relevant data with historical depth, this phenomenon has not been studied fully in the context of global change or sustainability. It is hoped that this book is of use to those who are concerned about the present and future land use in the world.
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.
This volume provides an in-depth analysis of the attempts of language experts and governments to control language use and development in Eastern Europe, Eurasia and China through planned activities generally known as language planning or language policy. The ten case studies presented here examine language planning in China, Russia, Tatarstan, Central Asia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and focus in particular on developments and disputes that have occurred since the 'fall of communism' and the emergence of a new order in the late 1980s. Its authors highlight the dominant issues with which language planning is invariably intertwined. These include power politics, tensions between 'official language' and 'minority languages', and the effects of a country's particular political, social, cultural and psychological environment. Offering a detailed account of the socio-political and ideological developments that underlie language planning in these regions, this book will provide a valuable resource for students and scholars of linguistics, cultural studies, political science, sociology and history.
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. |
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