Political Geography Quarterly最新文献

Undoubtedly the 1980s was not the best decade for Brazil. The economy underwent a deep recession with high levels of inflation and serious consequences for wages, employment and the daily life of the population. The country retained one of the largest external debts of any Third-World country, with deeply harmful social costs for all the population (increased poverty, dangerous health conditions, swelling shanty towns, and the growth of prostitution, illiteracy and urban and rural violence). In consequence, the conditions for the reproduction of the workforce have deteriorated and undergone major changes. Falls in wage levels have reduced the quality of life for the population requiring them to seek out new survival strategies. If it is clear that the Brazilian external debt, with its associated consequences of internal indebtedness, penalizes men and women, it is equally clear that it is women who are most affected by the lack of adequate public services and by the general crisis of reproduction. This being the case, this essay seeks to describe some of the changes which have occurred in the work and living conditions of women, particularly in the urban sector, and to outline some of the strategies invented by women to confront the current social situation.

Feminist critiques of the public-private (male-female) dichotomy and feminist redefinitions of what is considered ‘political’ both have major implications for considering women's political activity. Arising from this a new dichotomy has emerged which distinguishes ‘formal’ politics from ‘informal’ politics. Taking examples which supposedly lie on either side of this division—local government women's committees and women's community action in London's docklands—our paper explores the usefulness of the formal-informal dichotomy. We outline the similarities which exist between women's political activity in both spheres, the empirical and theoretical interconnections between the spheres, and suggest that the division is invalid at all but a most superficial level. This paper argues that it is vital to move beyond looking at categories to look at the political processes which underlie them.

Wherever Europeans colonized they took with them the same assumptions that males in any society were always the political power-brokers and decision-makers. They failed to see that in many cultures, such as those of Aboriginal Australians, women held significant political as well as social and economic power. Whilst there is enormous diversity in Aboriginal culture across Australia, some generalizations can be made both about the traditional scene and the contemporary one.

In pre-European times Aboriginal women played very important economic roles in their societies. Unlike European women they did not have to depend upon their men folk to feed either themselves or their children. Indeed in some areas the men were often absent for long periods of time on ceremonial business. The women also had important roles to play in the religious and political spheres, these two being closely interdependent. In many cases knowledge and the resulting power was gender-specific. Thus there were men's sites and there were women's sites, and the traditional owners, whether they be female or male, had sole decision-making powers over those areas.

Today the variation in the position of women in the Aboriginal society is enormous. In some southern communities where little traditional knowledge remains, women often hold important leadership positions—albeit quite different from those of the northern women in the more traditional areas.

At the macro-scale of Australian politics, Aboriginal women have been largely ignored. Their past has been misinterpreted and their present power down-played. When Aboriginal representatives are sought by government authorities it is the men who are perceived as the leaders. This runs counter to the position at the micro-level where both women and men hold political power, the determination being the place or the situation rather than the gender.

This article attempts to clarify some conceptual issues with respect to childcare services and their accessibility to different groups of potential users. It is argued that conceptualizations based on the concept of ‘collective consumption’ have severe shortcomings for the study of childcare provision, not least among which is the fact that most children are cared for through ‘non-organized’ modes of childcare in which the state is not directly involved. Yet it remains essential to develop a theoretically-informed understanding of the different ways that childcare can be provided—a conceptualization in which the wider social policy environment is related to the particularities of local situations—because access to childcare can be an important determinant of parents' employment opportunities and family living standards. Moreover, access can be differentiated not only by class but also by its intersection with ethnicity and family structure. The childcare question needs to be resituated in the larger context of the relationship between economic restructuring and the reshaping of productive work. The reconceptualization developed here is used to explore modes of provision and access to childcare in Montréal in the context of the recent history of public policy and political struggles around this issue in the Province of Quebec.

This paper examines the theoretical significance of gay involvement in the gentrification of a New Orleans neighborhood. A narrative describing three sets of events that were crucial in the neighborhood's transformation is presented and analyzed. These events featured key actors who were gay men but who represented a complex configuration of interests. Contrary to expectations, those most active in advancing gay community development were gay speculators and developers, while those most resistant to promoting a gay political and social agenda were gay neighborhood activists. The role of state actors is seen as relatively minimal. These findings suggest that, in some land markets, the class interests of those who treat land as a financial asset can be facilitated by forming cross-cultural and cross-class alliances with gay communities. Because gay involvement in the neighborhood was overwhelmingly that of males, the study further suggests that gay community development can, under certain circumstances, facilitate, rather than undermine, the economic and social dominance of males in the urban environment.

Following the admonition of Most and Starr (1984) that international relations scholars ‘need to reconceptualize exactly what it is that we want to study, and why’ the authors attempt to understand alliances through the broader context of geopolitics and geopolitical perspectives on international relations. Using the ecological triad framework of the Sprouts, and Starr's ‘opportunity and willingness’ framework, alliances are viewed as part of the geopolitical constraints on available possibilities in the system, as part of the set of incentive structures that affect foreign policy decision-making, and as a central mechanism that permits decision-makers to overcome the geopolitical constraints of the system. Drawing on analogies with technology and borders, alliances can be viewed as important tools for overcoming the constraints of geopolitics, and for changing the meaning of the supposedly ‘permanent’ nature of international geography.

The paper contributes towards a better understanding of geographical levels in international politics. After a theoretical introduction, in which different approaches to the definition of geographical levels are compared, attention is focused on the functions of the regional level in the global political system. To this end the paper first discusses the work of the geographer Saul B. Cohen, and sets Cohen's views against those of a few other authors in the field. Some empirical data are introduced with regard to the assumed functions of geopolitical regions and the role of second-order power centers in channelling organized violence and warfare. The form of the groupings proposed by Cohen is roughly compared with the results of recent analyses of post-war patterns of trade and institutional links. Some major differences with Cohen's regions are apparent, and patterns for different policy areas do not always coincide. Judging from the available empirical data. there is no clear development towards a more salient role of regional power

This paper examines a boundary conflict in Israel in which urban and rural local authorities struggle over the municipal affiliation of regional industry and its property taxes. The study is based on participant observation and on detailed examination of minutes and material collected by the boundary commission serving as an advisory body to the Minister of Interior. The analysis of the conflict shows that structural social divisions and political processes tipped the balance of power in the country and triggered the boundary conflict. Basically, the conflict signifies a process of power-building in the urban periphery. The claims of the peripheral towns, essentially based on social justice, were checked by a combination of vested political interests, legal-bureaucratic constraints and prevailing forms of knowledge. The latter are manifested in some basic assumptions as to what a city is. In this paper, the considerations against and for boundary change have been translated into operational criteria. These criteria have been grouped into four categories: efficiency, effectiveness, social justice and legal bureaucratic constraints. Based on these criteria, a hierarchy of solutions to the conflict has been suggested. Due to legal-bureaucratic considerations the second best solution of maintaining the status quo was opted for by the boundary commission.