Pub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.1177/25148486231210408
Caroline Gottschalk Druschke, Eric G. Booth, Rebecca Lave, Sydney Widell, Emma Lundberg, Ben Sellers, Paige Stork
Stream restoration has become an increasingly important focus in southwestern Wisconsin's Driftless Area, an unglaciated, hilly pocket of the Upper Mississippi River Basin rich in groundwater-driven coldwater streams, recreationally important trout species, and agricultural communities. Climate change is driving a major increase in precipitation and flooding across this rural and often under-resourced region, effects complicated by the ongoing legacies of white settlement and the changes it wrought to area streams, including the burial of floodplains in sediment displaced off area hillslopes. As managers work to consider how to “restore” Driftless streams, riparian vegetation—grass versus trees—has become a central and surprisingly controversial node. Current stream restoration practice typically includes the removal of riparian trees, though that practice has come under increasing criticism. Grounded in more than 5 years of qualitative and biophysical fieldwork in the region, we build from interviews gathered with 18 Driftless Area stream restoration managers from 2018 to 2020 to point to the ways that managers leverage arguments about erosion, flooding, habitat, and angler access, among other things, in service of grass and trees. Indexing the surface flows and underflows of this restoration debate, we introduce the rhetorical concept of the proxy debate to argue that debates about grass versus trees are tethered to competing perspectives on scale, temporality, and dynamism, surficial distractions from much deeper anxieties about what a stream is and should be. We turn to the ways that these distractions serve to further distance the stream restoration enterprise from acknowledging the ongoing human and hydrologic legacies of settler colonialism, and we close by suggesting that careful attention to rhetorical power—both to what arguments say and do, and to what they elide—offers a tentative first step toward restoring lands and relations by questioning what is taken for granted and what lies beneath.
{"title":"Grass versus trees: A proxy debate for deeper anxieties about competing stream worlds","authors":"Caroline Gottschalk Druschke, Eric G. Booth, Rebecca Lave, Sydney Widell, Emma Lundberg, Ben Sellers, Paige Stork","doi":"10.1177/25148486231210408","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231210408","url":null,"abstract":"Stream restoration has become an increasingly important focus in southwestern Wisconsin's Driftless Area, an unglaciated, hilly pocket of the Upper Mississippi River Basin rich in groundwater-driven coldwater streams, recreationally important trout species, and agricultural communities. Climate change is driving a major increase in precipitation and flooding across this rural and often under-resourced region, effects complicated by the ongoing legacies of white settlement and the changes it wrought to area streams, including the burial of floodplains in sediment displaced off area hillslopes. As managers work to consider how to “restore” Driftless streams, riparian vegetation—grass versus trees—has become a central and surprisingly controversial node. Current stream restoration practice typically includes the removal of riparian trees, though that practice has come under increasing criticism. Grounded in more than 5 years of qualitative and biophysical fieldwork in the region, we build from interviews gathered with 18 Driftless Area stream restoration managers from 2018 to 2020 to point to the ways that managers leverage arguments about erosion, flooding, habitat, and angler access, among other things, in service of grass and trees. Indexing the surface flows and underflows of this restoration debate, we introduce the rhetorical concept of the proxy debate to argue that debates about grass versus trees are tethered to competing perspectives on scale, temporality, and dynamism, surficial distractions from much deeper anxieties about what a stream is and should be. We turn to the ways that these distractions serve to further distance the stream restoration enterprise from acknowledging the ongoing human and hydrologic legacies of settler colonialism, and we close by suggesting that careful attention to rhetorical power—both to what arguments say and do, and to what they elide—offers a tentative first step toward restoring lands and relations by questioning what is taken for granted and what lies beneath.","PeriodicalId":11723,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning. E, Nature and Space","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135373258","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-28DOI: 10.1177/25148486231202253
Danya Al-Saleh, Mohammed Rafi Arefin
In 2008, the American University in Cairo (AUC) moved from its downtown campus in Tahrir Square to the center of New Cairo. Through an analysis of AUC's historical land acquisitions at Cairo's urban periphery, this article examines how the university sought to influence land use over the past century. We argue that AUC's relatively recent role in New Cairo is an expression of the institution's century-long aspirations to acquire land on Cairo's periphery for a permanent suburban style campus. Drawing on the tools of political ecology and critical university studies, we trace how a suburban desert campus is consistently envisioned as a mechanism for the institution to play a significant role in influencing land politics and use in and beyond its campus. We highlight two key ways that AUC has historically situated itself in the city's development. First, purchasing land in order to relocate to the outskirts of the city has been central to AUC's strategy for accumulating wealth to ensure its long-term presence in Egypt. Second, acquiring large tracts of land for a suburban desert campus has been instrumental to AUC's educational mission to shape its student body, Egyptian society, and the political ecology of desert land in Egypt. Through archival research, we show how AUC's relationship to land positions the university as a significant institutional force in Cairo's rapidly urbanizing desert periphery. This situated case study contributes to an emerging body of scholarship examining the fraught historical and contemporary relationship between universities, land, environmental knowledge, and uneven urbanization in the Middle East and beyond.
{"title":"Political ecologies of a university and land at Cairo's urban periphery: The American University in Cairo's suburban desert campus","authors":"Danya Al-Saleh, Mohammed Rafi Arefin","doi":"10.1177/25148486231202253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231202253","url":null,"abstract":"In 2008, the American University in Cairo (AUC) moved from its downtown campus in Tahrir Square to the center of New Cairo. Through an analysis of AUC's historical land acquisitions at Cairo's urban periphery, this article examines how the university sought to influence land use over the past century. We argue that AUC's relatively recent role in New Cairo is an expression of the institution's century-long aspirations to acquire land on Cairo's periphery for a permanent suburban style campus. Drawing on the tools of political ecology and critical university studies, we trace how a suburban desert campus is consistently envisioned as a mechanism for the institution to play a significant role in influencing land politics and use in and beyond its campus. We highlight two key ways that AUC has historically situated itself in the city's development. First, purchasing land in order to relocate to the outskirts of the city has been central to AUC's strategy for accumulating wealth to ensure its long-term presence in Egypt. Second, acquiring large tracts of land for a suburban desert campus has been instrumental to AUC's educational mission to shape its student body, Egyptian society, and the political ecology of desert land in Egypt. Through archival research, we show how AUC's relationship to land positions the university as a significant institutional force in Cairo's rapidly urbanizing desert periphery. This situated case study contributes to an emerging body of scholarship examining the fraught historical and contemporary relationship between universities, land, environmental knowledge, and uneven urbanization in the Middle East and beyond.","PeriodicalId":11723,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning. E, Nature and Space","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135386106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-28DOI: 10.1177/25148486231203111
Peng Li, Siyu Tian, Luchao Yao, Dan Feng
This paper explores the relations of materiality, identity formation and everyday politics in the governance of geothermal resource in contemporary China. Drawing on ethnographic data, we found that the materiality of geothermal water in its lively and dynamic forms plays agentic roles in discourse constructions, embodied experiences and material practices, shaping the socio-natural politics. The social relations, contestations and conflicts are rooted in the ontological differences of geothermal water as understood by the competing actors. The study of geothermal water contributes to recent debates on the agency of materials in urban political ecology studies as well as exploring everyday politics by highlighting the multiplicity and heterogeneity of actors and the ways in which identity formations are mobilized in everyday governance. This paper sheds light on the heterogeneous configurations of urbanization processes and resource governance.
{"title":"‘My body tells me to stay here’: Materiality, identity and everyday politics in Wentang Town, China","authors":"Peng Li, Siyu Tian, Luchao Yao, Dan Feng","doi":"10.1177/25148486231203111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231203111","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the relations of materiality, identity formation and everyday politics in the governance of geothermal resource in contemporary China. Drawing on ethnographic data, we found that the materiality of geothermal water in its lively and dynamic forms plays agentic roles in discourse constructions, embodied experiences and material practices, shaping the socio-natural politics. The social relations, contestations and conflicts are rooted in the ontological differences of geothermal water as understood by the competing actors. The study of geothermal water contributes to recent debates on the agency of materials in urban political ecology studies as well as exploring everyday politics by highlighting the multiplicity and heterogeneity of actors and the ways in which identity formations are mobilized in everyday governance. This paper sheds light on the heterogeneous configurations of urbanization processes and resource governance.","PeriodicalId":11723,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning. E, Nature and Space","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135386107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-27DOI: 10.1177/25148486231203854
Daanish Mustafa, Muhammad Salman Khan, Helmut De Nardi, James Caron, Arab Naz, Mohsin Shinwari, Aneela Gul
Water has been formulated as a resource or a hazard within water resources geography. We propose that reframing of water as hydro-heritage opens up richer analytical possibilities for examining the pluriverses and multiple ontologies that animate gendered experience of water. We are concerned with how hydro-heritage has or could have contributed to healing in the post-conflict Swat valley of Pakistan. We highlight how the Taliban insurgency and the reconstruction following its military defeat displaced people's worlds of meaning in Swat. We find that the pre-conflict mountain springs were a site for an enchanted affective encounter between humans and non-humans, where a multifaceted gendered experience of water was enacted. The developmental imaginaries of the Pakistan state in the post-conflict reconstruction phase and the accompanying social changes deracinated water and springs from their pluriversal moorings towards ‘modern water’ with damaging material and emotional consequences for the people of Swat. This was particularly pronounced in terms of gendered access to water, health and mobility. We suggest that water as hydro-heritage has the potential to heal, provided people's worlds of meaning and experience of water are recentred in developmental imaginaries.
{"title":"Hydro-heritage for healing? Examining the gendered experience of water in post-conflict Swat, Pakistan","authors":"Daanish Mustafa, Muhammad Salman Khan, Helmut De Nardi, James Caron, Arab Naz, Mohsin Shinwari, Aneela Gul","doi":"10.1177/25148486231203854","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231203854","url":null,"abstract":"Water has been formulated as a resource or a hazard within water resources geography. We propose that reframing of water as hydro-heritage opens up richer analytical possibilities for examining the pluriverses and multiple ontologies that animate gendered experience of water. We are concerned with how hydro-heritage has or could have contributed to healing in the post-conflict Swat valley of Pakistan. We highlight how the Taliban insurgency and the reconstruction following its military defeat displaced people's worlds of meaning in Swat. We find that the pre-conflict mountain springs were a site for an enchanted affective encounter between humans and non-humans, where a multifaceted gendered experience of water was enacted. The developmental imaginaries of the Pakistan state in the post-conflict reconstruction phase and the accompanying social changes deracinated water and springs from their pluriversal moorings towards ‘modern water’ with damaging material and emotional consequences for the people of Swat. This was particularly pronounced in terms of gendered access to water, health and mobility. We suggest that water as hydro-heritage has the potential to heal, provided people's worlds of meaning and experience of water are recentred in developmental imaginaries.","PeriodicalId":11723,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning. E, Nature and Space","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135537801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-20DOI: 10.1177/25148486231201216
Finn Mempel, Esteve Corbera, Beatriz Rodríguez Labajos, Edward Challies
Soybeans are ubiquitous in the global food system. As a major forest risk commodity, they are also at the heart of efforts to untangle the dynamics of land use change and associated impacts resulting from distant drivers. However, land system science has so far largely ignored the historically and socially embedded nature of these entanglements. This results in snapshot-like representations relying on neoclassical approaches to production and consumption. Here, we trace the evolution of the global soybean complex (GSC) since the late nineteenth century. We analyze how in the context of external developments soybeans have been channeled into different provisioning systems. This has occurred in a series of socio-ecological fixes, facilitated by socio-technological innovations and public sector interventions, motivated by different impediments to capital accumulation. Today, several emerging socio-technological practices promise to transform the GSC towards sustainability. We argue that the contemporary GSC inherits defining properties from the past, particularly the postwar strategy of using industrial animal farming to add value to surplus grains and oilseeds. The expanding GSC is therefore not merely a result of increasing demand, but rather the outcome of different provisioning systems’ continued dependence on soybeans. Future transitions will depend on public interventions and the influence of vested interest in current socio-metabolic patterns.
{"title":"From railroad imperialism to neoliberal reprimarization: Lessons from regime-shifts in the Global Soybean Complex","authors":"Finn Mempel, Esteve Corbera, Beatriz Rodríguez Labajos, Edward Challies","doi":"10.1177/25148486231201216","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231201216","url":null,"abstract":"Soybeans are ubiquitous in the global food system. As a major forest risk commodity, they are also at the heart of efforts to untangle the dynamics of land use change and associated impacts resulting from distant drivers. However, land system science has so far largely ignored the historically and socially embedded nature of these entanglements. This results in snapshot-like representations relying on neoclassical approaches to production and consumption. Here, we trace the evolution of the global soybean complex (GSC) since the late nineteenth century. We analyze how in the context of external developments soybeans have been channeled into different provisioning systems. This has occurred in a series of socio-ecological fixes, facilitated by socio-technological innovations and public sector interventions, motivated by different impediments to capital accumulation. Today, several emerging socio-technological practices promise to transform the GSC towards sustainability. We argue that the contemporary GSC inherits defining properties from the past, particularly the postwar strategy of using industrial animal farming to add value to surplus grains and oilseeds. The expanding GSC is therefore not merely a result of increasing demand, but rather the outcome of different provisioning systems’ continued dependence on soybeans. Future transitions will depend on public interventions and the influence of vested interest in current socio-metabolic patterns.","PeriodicalId":11723,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning. E, Nature and Space","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136314277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-18DOI: 10.1177/25148486231199330
Sandra Cutts, Russell Fricano, Robert Peters
Environmental legislation promotes citizen participation in the environmental review process through public hearings, community meetings, and advisory groups. However, environmental justice literature advocates higher levels of grassroots citizen empowerment through education and involvement in the decision-making process. Numerous research studies indicated that although the federal government supports community involvement in environmental restoration projects, such involvement has never been implemented to its fullest potential. This case study examines citizen participation and empowerment in the environmental review process in the redevelopment of three brownfields in underserved neighborhoods in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. This study quantifies empowerment leveraging Arnstein's ladder of participation in a novel approach. Utilizing a survey questionnaire, this analysis was conducted in three ways: a comparison of actual citizen participation methods used in the process with those providing a higher level of empowerment; compilation of open-ended responses of citizen dissatisfaction with the environmental review process; and utilizing Arnstein's Ladder to measure perceived levels of empowerment of citizen, public official, and developer stakeholders. Findings suggest that the types of participation methods used were at lower levels of citizen empowerment removed from decision-making; in responses to open-ended questions, citizens expressed shortcomings in the participatory process compared with their opinion on how it should be conducted, and perceived levels of empowerment differed among the categories of stakeholders. Citizens reported perceptions of empowerment at levels of tokenism removed from decision-making, while developers and public officials reported higher levels of empowerment. This study concludes that more innovative citizen participation techniques, university/community partnerships, and collaborative compact models are needed for more equitable participation. Statement of Problem—The purpose of this case study is to analyze how well citizen participation in the environmental review process as specified by legislation corresponds to normative guidelines prescribed in the environmental justice literature.
{"title":"Environmental justice for whom? Citizen participation and brownfield redevelopment in downtown Birmingham, Alabama","authors":"Sandra Cutts, Russell Fricano, Robert Peters","doi":"10.1177/25148486231199330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231199330","url":null,"abstract":"Environmental legislation promotes citizen participation in the environmental review process through public hearings, community meetings, and advisory groups. However, environmental justice literature advocates higher levels of grassroots citizen empowerment through education and involvement in the decision-making process. Numerous research studies indicated that although the federal government supports community involvement in environmental restoration projects, such involvement has never been implemented to its fullest potential. This case study examines citizen participation and empowerment in the environmental review process in the redevelopment of three brownfields in underserved neighborhoods in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. This study quantifies empowerment leveraging Arnstein's ladder of participation in a novel approach. Utilizing a survey questionnaire, this analysis was conducted in three ways: a comparison of actual citizen participation methods used in the process with those providing a higher level of empowerment; compilation of open-ended responses of citizen dissatisfaction with the environmental review process; and utilizing Arnstein's Ladder to measure perceived levels of empowerment of citizen, public official, and developer stakeholders. Findings suggest that the types of participation methods used were at lower levels of citizen empowerment removed from decision-making; in responses to open-ended questions, citizens expressed shortcomings in the participatory process compared with their opinion on how it should be conducted, and perceived levels of empowerment differed among the categories of stakeholders. Citizens reported perceptions of empowerment at levels of tokenism removed from decision-making, while developers and public officials reported higher levels of empowerment. This study concludes that more innovative citizen participation techniques, university/community partnerships, and collaborative compact models are needed for more equitable participation. Statement of Problem—The purpose of this case study is to analyze how well citizen participation in the environmental review process as specified by legislation corresponds to normative guidelines prescribed in the environmental justice literature.","PeriodicalId":11723,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning. E, Nature and Space","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135206717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-14DOI: 10.1177/25148486231194840
Catherine Nash
Breed imaginations and practices fundamentally shape the lives of farmed, working and companion animals. Bringing together interests in animal breeding, interspecies kinship and multispecies care, this paper explores the relationship between investments in the continued existence and vitality of a breed as a whole and the encounter value of individual human–animal relations. It considers how breed matters to animal lives and relations through a conceptual focus on value and difference and an empirical focus on the breeding of horses in Iceland. These relations are not only limited to human–animal relations but also include social relations among animals. This paper firstly considers the significance of local and regional sub-species difference and practices of selection and inclusion in the making of horses in Iceland into a national breed. It then explores the perspectives of those involved in the breeding of horses in Iceland on what counts as quality and appropriate care for the breed and individual animals. Practices of care in Iceland are centred on allowing horses to live as sociable herd animals for extended periods of time each year, for the sake of individual animal well-being, to preserve the character of the breed, and in order to continue to enjoy the quality of human–horse relations that this system is understood to enable. Encounter value, in this case, depends on respecting difference and keeping at a distance. Multispecies care is thus not centred only on intimacy and the intersubjective; nor does treating animals as groups necessarily reduce the quality of care. The geographies of care for individual animals and for the breed are more complex and entangled. This suggests the need to address the implications of the positioning of animals as members of groups and species, as well as breeds, for animal lives and relations.
{"title":"Valuing difference: How breed matters for animal lives and relations","authors":"Catherine Nash","doi":"10.1177/25148486231194840","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231194840","url":null,"abstract":"Breed imaginations and practices fundamentally shape the lives of farmed, working and companion animals. Bringing together interests in animal breeding, interspecies kinship and multispecies care, this paper explores the relationship between investments in the continued existence and vitality of a breed as a whole and the encounter value of individual human–animal relations. It considers how breed matters to animal lives and relations through a conceptual focus on value and difference and an empirical focus on the breeding of horses in Iceland. These relations are not only limited to human–animal relations but also include social relations among animals. This paper firstly considers the significance of local and regional sub-species difference and practices of selection and inclusion in the making of horses in Iceland into a national breed. It then explores the perspectives of those involved in the breeding of horses in Iceland on what counts as quality and appropriate care for the breed and individual animals. Practices of care in Iceland are centred on allowing horses to live as sociable herd animals for extended periods of time each year, for the sake of individual animal well-being, to preserve the character of the breed, and in order to continue to enjoy the quality of human–horse relations that this system is understood to enable. Encounter value, in this case, depends on respecting difference and keeping at a distance. Multispecies care is thus not centred only on intimacy and the intersubjective; nor does treating animals as groups necessarily reduce the quality of care. The geographies of care for individual animals and for the breed are more complex and entangled. This suggests the need to address the implications of the positioning of animals as members of groups and species, as well as breeds, for animal lives and relations.","PeriodicalId":11723,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning. E, Nature and Space","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134970227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-05DOI: 10.1177/25148486231198010
A. Midlen
The blue economy represents a new development paradigm, being promoted through multilateral institutions. I examine its emerging nature in the context of the Western Indian Ocean region of Africa. I situate the blue economy within the global sustainable development discourse and argue that it represents a form of global governmentality. I note its utopian nature and argue that discourses of utopian thought and risk act to ‘responsibilise’ States to collaborate in regional sea management in pursuit of human and environmental security goals – which I call a ‘collaborative blue economy governmentality’. I draw attention to multiple sites of resistance (‘counter conducts’) to this governmentality. These counter conducts are diverse, encompassing community resistance to development priorities, insufficient technical capacities and resources, and the material character of ocean and coastal ecosystems. I therefore characterise the blue economy as an immature governmentality, necessitating State and multilateral intervention to put in place or strengthen the governmental capacities needed to enact it. I conclude that the BE governmentality is largely of a neoliberal character, but with hints of an emergent post-neoliberal regime.
{"title":"Enacting the blue economy in the Western Indian Ocean: A ‘collaborative blue economy governmentality’","authors":"A. Midlen","doi":"10.1177/25148486231198010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231198010","url":null,"abstract":"The blue economy represents a new development paradigm, being promoted through multilateral institutions. I examine its emerging nature in the context of the Western Indian Ocean region of Africa. I situate the blue economy within the global sustainable development discourse and argue that it represents a form of global governmentality. I note its utopian nature and argue that discourses of utopian thought and risk act to ‘responsibilise’ States to collaborate in regional sea management in pursuit of human and environmental security goals – which I call a ‘collaborative blue economy governmentality’. I draw attention to multiple sites of resistance (‘counter conducts’) to this governmentality. These counter conducts are diverse, encompassing community resistance to development priorities, insufficient technical capacities and resources, and the material character of ocean and coastal ecosystems. I therefore characterise the blue economy as an immature governmentality, necessitating State and multilateral intervention to put in place or strengthen the governmental capacities needed to enact it. I conclude that the BE governmentality is largely of a neoliberal character, but with hints of an emergent post-neoliberal regime.","PeriodicalId":11723,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning. E, Nature and Space","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84330755","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-03DOI: 10.1177/25148486231199334
Chi-Mao Wang, Ker-hsuan Chien
This paper examines the making and remaking of Taiwan's banana export market in response to the devastation caused by an outbreak of a novel infectious plant disease, Fusarium wilt disease Tropical Race 4 (TR4, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Cubense) . Taiwan was the world's fourth-largest exporter of bananas in the 1960s before the collapse of the market in the early 1970s. While scholars have drawn on actor-network theory-inspired performativity approach to understand the role of non-human actants in market-making, insufficient attention has been given to the distinct impacts of microbes on cases such as that of Taiwan's banana export market. Microbes’ creative and ever-evolving qualities constantly present challenges related to the control and containment of such non-human entities, for which no pre-existing or universally applicable solutions exist. Consequently, there is a lack of research that provides useful frameworks to understand such disease-plagued markets. To bridge this gap in the literature, we examine the remaking of Taiwan's banana export market in the aftermath of the TR4 crisis using a case study approach and develop the notion of pathological markets. Inspired by recent scholarship on biosecurity and related care practices, we outline two characteristics that shape pathological markets: (a) speculative and probiotic care practices and (b) the rescaling of market organisations. The results of the fieldwork conducted as part of the present study in laboratories, government offices and on banana farms lead us to contend that the growth and development of particular microbes in multispecies environments such as Taiwan's banana farms constantly pose significant challenges for market farming. Moreover, to co-exist with the threats posed by the growth and development of microbes such as those which cause Fusarium wilt disease TR4, growers in Taiwan's banana export market rely heavily on probiotic and speculative care practices.
{"title":"Governing pathological markets: Microbes, banana export markets, and speculative farming practices","authors":"Chi-Mao Wang, Ker-hsuan Chien","doi":"10.1177/25148486231199334","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231199334","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the making and remaking of Taiwan's banana export market in response to the devastation caused by an outbreak of a novel infectious plant disease, Fusarium wilt disease Tropical Race 4 (TR4, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Cubense) . Taiwan was the world's fourth-largest exporter of bananas in the 1960s before the collapse of the market in the early 1970s. While scholars have drawn on actor-network theory-inspired performativity approach to understand the role of non-human actants in market-making, insufficient attention has been given to the distinct impacts of microbes on cases such as that of Taiwan's banana export market. Microbes’ creative and ever-evolving qualities constantly present challenges related to the control and containment of such non-human entities, for which no pre-existing or universally applicable solutions exist. Consequently, there is a lack of research that provides useful frameworks to understand such disease-plagued markets. To bridge this gap in the literature, we examine the remaking of Taiwan's banana export market in the aftermath of the TR4 crisis using a case study approach and develop the notion of pathological markets. Inspired by recent scholarship on biosecurity and related care practices, we outline two characteristics that shape pathological markets: (a) speculative and probiotic care practices and (b) the rescaling of market organisations. The results of the fieldwork conducted as part of the present study in laboratories, government offices and on banana farms lead us to contend that the growth and development of particular microbes in multispecies environments such as Taiwan's banana farms constantly pose significant challenges for market farming. Moreover, to co-exist with the threats posed by the growth and development of microbes such as those which cause Fusarium wilt disease TR4, growers in Taiwan's banana export market rely heavily on probiotic and speculative care practices.","PeriodicalId":11723,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning. E, Nature and Space","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2023-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83473930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-09-01DOI: 10.1177/25148486231191473
Julianne A Hazlewood, Beth Rose Middleton Manning, Jennifer J Casolo
As burgeoning new forms of authoritarianism and fascism expand their reach, Geographies of Hope-in-Praxis stem from the locus of the present moment. Constellations of peoples re-rooted into place refuse Western ideals of democracy and development and engage with one another in new arrangements based on ancestral ways of knowing. In this Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space issue on Geographies of Hope-in-Praxis (GgsHope-in-Praxis), we step into ongoing conversations about hope, push back on business as usual, and amplify understandings of initiatives to (re)assemble different kinds of wor(l)ds. Our collection “geographizes” hope by digging into hope’s praxes—theories with action. Resurgent versions of hope can be better understood within the contexts of six dimensions—place, alliance, the unthinkable, perseverance, resilience, and the (im)possible—that provide diverse lenses for delving deeper into hope's complex topographies. Together, the articles reach across regional differences and bridge on-the-ground approaches. We activate hope through long-term, reciprocal, and accountable community-based methodologies in Brazil, Ecuador, the Philippines, and Southeast Alaska, California, and Kentucky in the USA. GgsHope-in-Praxis come to life in the process of collaboratively decolonizing relations and regenerating relational spaces. Vines of hope creep into crevices to interrupt and transform oppressive systems, intertwine to (re)weave localized communities together in living networks, and expand realities to increasingly join in solidarity with one another and amplify diverse pathways towards environmental-with-racial justices.
随着新兴形式的威权主义和法西斯主义不断扩张,“实践中的希望地理学”(geography of hope -in- practice)源于当下。重新扎根的一群人拒绝西方的民主和发展理想,并以基于祖先认识方式的新安排彼此交往。在本期《环境与规划E:自然与空间:实践中希望的地理》(ggshop - In - praxis)中,我们进入了关于希望的持续对话,一如既往地推动业务,并扩大了对倡议的理解,以(重新)组合不同类型的世界。我们的收藏通过挖掘希望的实践-理论与行动,将希望“地理化”。希望的复活版本可以在六个维度的背景下得到更好的理解——地点、联盟、不可想象的、毅力、韧性和(不可能的)可能性——这为深入研究希望的复杂地形提供了不同的视角。总之,这些文章跨越了地区差异,为实地方法架起了桥梁。我们在巴西、厄瓜多尔、菲律宾、阿拉斯加东南部、加利福尼亚和肯塔基州通过长期、互惠和负责任的社区方法激活希望。在协作去殖民化关系和再生关系空间的过程中,ggshop -in- praxis变得生动起来。希望之藤爬进裂缝,打断和改变压迫制度,交织在一起(重新)编织当地社区在生活网络中,扩大现实,越来越多地团结起来,扩大实现环境与种族正义的多种途径。
{"title":"Geographies of Hope-in-Praxis: Collaboratively decolonizing relations and regenerating relational spaces","authors":"Julianne A Hazlewood, Beth Rose Middleton Manning, Jennifer J Casolo","doi":"10.1177/25148486231191473","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486231191473","url":null,"abstract":"As burgeoning new forms of authoritarianism and fascism expand their reach, Geographies of Hope-in-Praxis stem from the locus of the present moment. Constellations of peoples re-rooted into place refuse Western ideals of democracy and development and engage with one another in new arrangements based on ancestral ways of knowing. In this Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space issue on Geographies of Hope-in-Praxis (GgsHope-in-Praxis), we step into ongoing conversations about hope, push back on business as usual, and amplify understandings of initiatives to (re)assemble different kinds of wor(l)ds. Our collection “geographizes” hope by digging into hope’s praxes—theories with action. Resurgent versions of hope can be better understood within the contexts of six dimensions—place, alliance, the unthinkable, perseverance, resilience, and the (im)possible—that provide diverse lenses for delving deeper into hope's complex topographies. Together, the articles reach across regional differences and bridge on-the-ground approaches. We activate hope through long-term, reciprocal, and accountable community-based methodologies in Brazil, Ecuador, the Philippines, and Southeast Alaska, California, and Kentucky in the USA. GgsHope-in-Praxis come to life in the process of collaboratively decolonizing relations and regenerating relational spaces. Vines of hope creep into crevices to interrupt and transform oppressive systems, intertwine to (re)weave localized communities together in living networks, and expand realities to increasingly join in solidarity with one another and amplify diverse pathways towards environmental-with-racial justices.","PeriodicalId":11723,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning. E, Nature and Space","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135640134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}