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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Social impact of environmental issues
This book develops the concept of feminist technoecologies as a theoretical and methodological tool for examining the co-constitutive relation between technology and ecology, which have typically been considered as distinct objects of studies. In underscoring how their dynamic relationality troubles the location of agency, this book challenges the idea that technology, as the marker of the innovative capacity of the human, either corrupts or saves ecology. The contributions to the volume present feminist approaches that contextualise and historicize such issues as multi-species survival, border control regimes, solar power, bioart, artificial intelligence and air pollution. They insist on the centrality of corporeality, affects, ethics and vulnerability in the materialisation of technoecological relations, and call into question the exceptional status of the figure of (hu)Man. Together they offer critical and creative tools or modes of inquiry for imagining alternative modalities of practicing care and thinking environmental sustainability. As a creative contribution to the growing literature on new configurations of bodies, technologies and environments against the backdrop of ecological degradation, digital technologization, and precarity in late capitalism, Feminist Technoecologies extends the interchanges between feminist materialisms, environmental humanities and feminist technosciences studies, and will be a resource for all those interested in these fields. This book was originally published as a special issue of Australian Feminist Studies.
Introduces undergraduates to the key debates regarding space and culture and the key theoretical arguments which guide cultural geographical work. This book addresses the impact, significance, and characteristics of the 'cultural turn' in contemporary geography. It focuses on the development of the cultural geography subdiscipline and on what has made it a peculiar and unique realm of study. It demonstrates the importance of culture in the development of debates in other subdisciplines within geography and beyond. In line with these previous themes, the significance of space in the production of cultural values and expressions is also developed. Along with its timely examination of the health of the cultural geographical subdiscipline, this book is to be valued for its analysis of the impact of cultural theory on studies elsewhere in geography and of ideas of space and spatiality elsewhere in the social sciences.
A Feminist Glossary of Human Geography is the first guide to the main theories, concepts and terms commonly used in geographical debates about gender relations. Written by key contributors to feminist theory, it contains over 400 lively and accessible definitions of the terms found in feminist debates which students of geography need to know. Four levels of entry are used - from 50 to 1500 words - taking account of the varying degrees of complexity of the terms covered. From 'AIDS' to 'witch', from 'abortion' to 'whiteness', this 'Glossary' is cross-referenced throughout and includes a comprehensive bibliography. It is an invaluable reference for anyone studying geography and gender, enabling them to approach the terminology of feminist theory and ideas with confidence.
This is a multidisciplinary collection of thirty-nine key articles concerned with the human impact on the natural environment. It is divided into six thematic parts, each introduced by the editor. It is designed to be used in university courses on environmental analysis and management, either on its own or in conjunction with Andrew Goudie's standard text, "The Human Impact on the Natural Environment" (fifth edition, 2000). Environmental change directly attributable to human action dates back at least 10,000 years, but has become increasingly significant following urbanization, industrialization, agricultural intensification, and the exponential growth in human population. It is now a central concern not only of many scientific disciplines, but of governments, business, international organizations, and the public at large. Deforestation has reduced the diversity of species. Local and trans-national air and water pollution have damaged health and agricultural productivity. Overfishing has reduced the stocks of many species to below the level of, at best, short-term recovery. Dams and river diversions have provided irrigation at the cost of salinification and the downstream desiccation - including the virtual loss of the Aral Sea. Fossil fuel omissions have contributed to global warming, among whose likely consequences are the desertification of many temperate regions and the loss of huge areas of land to the sea. These are among the topics to which scientists in this book address themselves. The consequences of the human impact on the environment present the planet's dominant species with perhaps its most intransigent and complex problems. "The Human Impact Reader" is awide-ranging and stimulating resource for the study and understanding of contemporary environmental processes at local, regional and global scales.
This accessible critique of urban construction reimagines city development and life in an era of unprecedented building. Exploring the proliferation of building and construction, Imrie sets out its many degrading impacts on both people and the environment. Using examples from around the world, he illustrates how construction is motivated by economic and political ideologies rather than actual need, and calls for a more sensitive, humane and nature-focused culture of construction. This compelling book calls for radical changes to city living and environments by building less, but better.
At least until cloning becomes the order of the day, Rene Dubos contends that each human being is unique, unprecedented, unrepeatable. However, today each person faces the critical danger of losing this very humanness to his mechanized surroundings. Most people spend their days in a confusion of concrete and steel, trapped "in the midst of noise, dirt, ugliness and absurdity." So begins the essential message of the work of one of the great figures in microbiology and experimental pathology of this century. Is the human species becoming dehumanized by the condition of his environment? So "Human an Animal "is an attempt to address this broad concern, and explain why so little is being done to address this issue. The book sounds both an urgent warning, and offers important policy insights into how this trend towards dehumanization can be halted and finally reversed. Dubos asserts that we are as much the product of our total environment as of our genetic endowment. In fact, the environment we live in can greatly enhance, or severely Hmit, the development of human potential. Yet we are deplorably ignorant of the effects of our surroundings on human life. We create conditions which can only thwart human nature. So "Human an Animal "is a book with hope no less than alarm. As Joseph Wood Krutch noted at the time, Dubos shows convincingly "why science is indispensable, not omnipotent." Science'can change our suicidal course by learning to deal analytically with the living experience of human beings, by supplementing the knowledge of things and of the body machine with a science of human life. Only then can we give larger scope to human freedom by providing a rational basis for option and action. Timely, eloquent, and guided by a deep humanistic spirit, this new edition is graced by a succinct and careful outline of the life and work of the author.
While the need for effective action toward a greener and socially inclusive economy has long been evident, health promotion in the context of sustainable development has faltered. Arguing that human health is the key factor to sustainable development, Development and Sustainability promotes a fresh, transdisciplinary approach to the eradication of extreme poverty. This ground-breaking book calls for new forms of cooperation which cross the traditional boundaries between social activism and science, and which are capable of harnessing the complex knowledge that such radical change requires. The contributions bridge the gap between those working for health and those working for sustainability science and the green economy, through developing the methodological and scientific means to deal with some of the most critical issues faced by humanity in the twenty-first century.
Contemporary critical studies have recently experienced a
significant spatial turn. In what may eventually be seen as one of
the most important intellectual and political developments in the
late twentieth century, scholars have begun to interpret space and
the embracing spatiality of human life with the same critical
insight and emphasis that has traditionally been given to time and
history on the one hand, and social relations and society on the
other. "Thirdspace" is both an enquiry into the origins and impact
of the spatial turn and an attempt to expand the scope and
practical relevance of how we think about space and such related
concepts as place, location, landscape, architecture, environment,
home, city, region, territory, and geography. The book's central argument is that spatial thinking, or what
has been called the geographical or spatial imagination, has tended
to be bicameral, or confined to two approaches. Spatiality is
either seen as concrete material forms to be mapped, analyzed, and
explained; or as mental constructs, ideas about and representations
of space and its social significance. Edward Soja critically
re-evaluates this dualism to create an alternative approach, one
that comprehends both the material and mental dimensions of
spatiality but also extends beyond them to new and different modes
of spatial thinking. "Thirdspace" is composed as a sequence of intellectual and empirical journeys, beginning with a spatial biography of Henri Lefebvre and his adventurous conceptualization of social space as simultaneously perceived, conceived, and lived. The author draws on Lefebvre to describe a trialectics of spatiality that threads though all subsequent journeys, reappearing in many new forms in bell hooks evocative exploration of the margins as a space of radical openness; in post-modern spatial feminist interpretations of the interplay of race, class, and gender; in the postcolonial critique and the new cultural politics of difference and identity; in Michel Foucault's heterotopologies and trialectics of space, knowledge, and power; and in interpretative tours of the Citadel of downtown Los Angeles, the Exopolis of Orange County, and the Centrum of Amsterdam.
This work demonstrates how radical geographies of resistance emerge, develop and operate. Radical cultural politics, exemplified by the black, feminist and gay liberation, has developed struggles to turn sites of oppression and discrimination into spaces of resistance. Post-colonial and queer theory has opened up new political spaces. Whether resistance is an act of transgression (crossing borders), opposition (such as constructing barricades), or everyday endurance (staying in place), these are geographies where space is constitutive of the social. Geographers draw on material from around the world, including Israel, Nepal, Canada, Philipines, Nigeria and Australia. Recasting current themes in critical human geography - politics, identity and place - the contributors introduce unexplored notions of resistance, offering insights for those exploring social, cultural, urban, political and developmental issues in different worlds of change.
Environmental Change explores the nature, causes, rates and directions of environmental change throughout earth history. Huggett introduces the interdependent parts of the natural environment - cosmic, ecological, geological - and the dynamic nature of the environmental system. Integrating a wealth of examples and illustrations from around the world, the book examines evidence and causes of change in life, climate (air and water), soils, sediments and landforms, and the impacts of human-environment interaction.
In Search of Ireland argues that Ireland's political problems are created by conflicts and confusions of identity. It brings together a number of distinguished contributors, each of whom examines a particular aspect of Ireland's diverse cultural geography and history. Issues covered include: the changing definitions of Irishness the roles of class and gender in constructing traditional alignments of identity the role of ethnicity in Irish society the invention and imagining of Irish 'place' the political implications of a pluralistic Ireland The contributors demonstrate that many people both inside and outside of Ireland continue to define themselves and their conflicts through simple sectarian stereotypes. The authors argue that politicians and others must reject these outdated either/or representations and accommodate instead the fluidity of Irish identity. James Anderson, University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne S.J. Connolly, Queens's University, Belfast Neville Douglas, Queen's University, Belfast Brian Graham, University of Ulste
With round-the-clock drugs, games, and eros parlors to entertain them and virtual weather to sustain them, humans live inside a global network of domed cities known collectively as "the Enclosure." Having poisoned the biosphere, we've had to close ourselves off from the Earth. The cities of the Enclosure are scattered around the globe on the land and sea, and are connected by a web of travel tubes, so no one needs to risk exposure. Health Patrollers police the boundaries of the Enclosure to keep the mutants and pollution out. Phoenix Marshall decodes satellite images for a living. He has spent all 30 years of his life in Oregon City, afloat on the Pacific Ocean. He busies himself with work and various forms of recreation to keep boredom at bay. One morning he opens his door to find Teeg Passio. Teeg is the same age as Phoenix, but she's different; she's menacingly and enticingly wild. She grew up on the outside. Her mother oversaw the recycling of the old cities, and her father helped design the Enclosure. Teeg works maintenance, which allows her to travel outside the walls. When she introduces Phoenix to her crew, he is drawn into a high-tech conspiracy that may threaten everything he understands. Are humans really better off within the Enclosure? Is the Earth? Are Health Patrollers keeping us safe or just keeping us in? Teeg seduces Phoenix out of his orderly life, enlisting him in a secret, political and sexual rebellion. Teeg and her co-conspirators, part mystics, part tech-wizards, dream of a life embedded in nature. Then one day, during a closely monitored repair mission on the outside, a typhoon offers the rebels a chance to escape the Enclosure and test their utopian dreams in the wilds.
This work demonstrates how radical geographies of resistance emerge, develop and operate. Radical cultural politics, exemplified by the black, feminist and gay liberation, has developed struggles to turn sites of oppression and discrimination into spaces of resistance. Post-colonial and queer theory has opened up new political spaces. Whether resistance is an act of transgression (crossing borders), opposition (such as constructing barricades), or everyday endurance (staying in place), these are geographies where space is constitutive of the social. Geographers draw on material from around the world, including Israel, Nepal, Canada, Philipines, Nigeria and Australia. Recasting current themes in critical human geography - politics, identity and place - the contributors introduce unexplored notions of resistance, offering insights for those exploring social, cultural, urban, political and developmental issues in different worlds of change.
Ecopolitics is a study of environmental awareness - or non-awareness - in contemporary French theory. Arguing that it is now impossible not to think in an ecological way, the author traces the roots of today's concern for the environment back to the intellectual climate of the late 50s and 60s. Major thinkers of 1968, the author argues, changed the way we think the world; this owes much to an ecological awareness that remains at the heart of issues concerning cultural theory in general. The book points to critiques of ecology in the work of Luc Ferry and Jean Baudrillard before turning to more complicated ecological awareness primarily in French thought. The author considers key texts by influential figures such as Michael Serres, Paul Virilio, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Michel de Certeau, Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray. The volume rehabilitates some ecological components of French intellectual thought since the 1960s, and reassesses French poststructural thinkers who explicitly deal with ecology in their work.
As global concern about the environment grows, so too does the demand for accurate and precise information about it. A new generation of interdisciplinary scientists is being trained to meet this need. These scientists have a massive area of operation, utilising tools from a plethora of traditional sciences. Essential Environmental Science brings together in a quantitative and easily applicable manner a large selection of these tools, providing for the first time a useable and self-contained set of methodologies for undergraduates in the environmental sciences. The book is in ten chapters with three appendices. Essential Environmental Science is an invaluable resource for students in the laboratory or field, as well as providing a substance reference source to supplement course work and research.
One of the main features of the contemporary environmental crisis is that no-one has a clear pictue of what is taking place. Environmental problems are real enough but they bring home the inadequacy of our knowledge. How does the natural world relate to the social world? Why do we continue to have such a poor understanding? How can ecological knowledge be made to relate to our understanding of human society? The book argues that the division of labour is a key but neglected factor underlying people's inability to adequately understand and relate to the natural world. The argument extends Marx's theory of alienation to account for inadequate knowledge and therefore inadequate concern for nature. Using recent developments in "critical realist" philosophy, the book aims to find ways of reorganising knowledge in the light of ecological consciousness. It also corrects the emphasis of much environmental literature by focusing on production rather than consumption.
Struggles for environmental justice involve communities mobilising against powerful forces which advocate 'development', driven increasingly by neoliberal imperatives. In doing so, communities face questions about their alliances with other groups, working with outsiders and issues of class, race, ethnicity, gender, worker/community and settler/indigenous relationships. Written by a wide range of international scholars and activists, contributors explore these dynamics and the opportunities for agency and solidarity. They critique the practice of community development professionals, academics, trade union organisers, social movements and activists and inform those engaged in the pursuit of justice as community, development and environment interact. |
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