Pub Date : 2024-10-12DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104135
Alex Y. Lo , Lewis T.O. Cheung , Shuwen Liu
Micro-businesses are highly vulnerable to the impact of extreme weather. However, business and management research has primarily focused on larger organizations or tended to rely on evidence from developed countries. The concept of place is reduced to physical location and space. This research explores the role of a broader concept of place that encompasses sensemaking. The objective is to examine the relationship between sense of place and the vulnerable characteristics of business. Structured interviews were conducted with 300 owners and operators of micro-businesses operating in three Chinese coastal cities. Results have identified multiple linkages between attributes of sense of place and business vulnerability. While these linkages do not demonstrate complete coherence, place identity shows the strongest explanatory power. New directions for future research are discussed, concerning the multidimensionality of the concept of place beyond materiality and spatiality, and the dynamic relationship between place and vulnerability accumulation.
{"title":"Sense of place and micro-business vulnerability to extreme weather in China","authors":"Alex Y. Lo , Lewis T.O. Cheung , Shuwen Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104135","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104135","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Micro-businesses are highly vulnerable to the impact of extreme weather. However, business and management research has primarily focused on larger organizations or tended to rely on evidence from developed countries. The concept of place is reduced to physical location and space. This research explores the role of a broader concept of place that encompasses sensemaking. The objective is to examine the relationship between sense of place and the vulnerable characteristics of business. Structured interviews were conducted with 300 owners and operators of micro-businesses operating in three Chinese coastal cities. Results have identified multiple linkages between attributes of sense of place and business vulnerability. While these linkages do not demonstrate complete coherence, place identity shows the strongest explanatory power. New directions for future research are discussed, concerning the multidimensionality of the concept of place beyond materiality and spatiality, and the dynamic relationship between place and vulnerability accumulation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"156 ","pages":"Article 104135"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142422014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-10-08DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104130
Khaoula Ettarfi
In this article, I attempt to contribute to understanding labor agency in the context of platform-mediated labor, or gig work, in the domestic cleaning sector in Geneva through the category of resilience. First, I briefly summarize different accounts of platform-mediated work to highlight issues around temporariness and flexibility. Then, I present the theoretical framework of the paper, which interweaves literature on workers’ agency that focuses on micro-level and livelihood practices. The second part of the paper is based on empirical fieldwork I conducted in Geneva with workers who engage in platform-mediated labor. I present the findings by juxtaposing vignettes that frame resilience through multiple voices and experiences. The vignettes present specific everyday practices of resilience that I introduce through the lexicon of reassembling work. The vignettes further highlight the relational, spatial, and ambiguous characteristics of resilience in mediating conditions of precarization in the labor market.
{"title":"Conceptualizing labor agency through resilience: Practices of reassembling work on domestic services platforms","authors":"Khaoula Ettarfi","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104130","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104130","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this article, I attempt to contribute to understanding labor agency in the context of platform-mediated labor, or gig work, in the domestic cleaning sector in Geneva through the category of resilience. First, I briefly summarize different accounts of platform-mediated work to highlight issues around temporariness and flexibility. Then, I present the theoretical framework of the paper, which interweaves literature on workers’ agency that focuses on micro-level and livelihood practices. The second part of the paper is based on empirical fieldwork I conducted in Geneva with workers who engage in platform-mediated labor. I present the findings by juxtaposing vignettes that frame resilience through multiple voices and experiences. The vignettes present specific everyday practices of resilience that I introduce through the lexicon of reassembling work. The vignettes further highlight the relational, spatial, and ambiguous characteristics of resilience in mediating conditions of precarization in the labor market.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"156 ","pages":"Article 104130"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142422013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-10-07DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104131
Mfundo Mlilo , Michael Bollig , Javier Revilla Diez
Victoria Falls, a majestic waterfall designated as a World Heritage site in Zimbabwe, is one of Africa’s well-sought-after tourist destinations. The thriving tourism industry in Victoria Falls emerged from the early days of colonialism in 1900 to occupy an essential position within the British colonial empire and thus played a central role in travel itineraries in Southern Africa. However, alongside its emergent success, previously envisioned within European colonial imagery of leisure and supremacy, participation in the present tourism value chain and value capture is uneven and skewed towards foreign and white-own tourism businesses. These patterns of exclusion potentially mirror the racial structural inequalities imposed by colonialism, which ended in 1980. In this paper, we contribute to scholarship on tourism global value chains (GVCs) by analysing the role and impact of history /colonial past on the current nature of the tourism value chain in Victoria Falls. In this approach, we adopt the concept of Coloniality of power to illuminate past continuities and explain the uneven participation and value capture among actors. More fundamentally, we provide a brief reflection on how tourism GVCs can be extricated from colonial and racial legacies.
{"title":"Coloniality of power and the imaginaries of tourism in Victoria Falls","authors":"Mfundo Mlilo , Michael Bollig , Javier Revilla Diez","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104131","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104131","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Victoria Falls, a majestic waterfall designated as a World Heritage site in Zimbabwe, is one of Africa’s well-sought-after tourist destinations. The thriving tourism industry in Victoria Falls emerged from the early days of colonialism in 1900 to occupy an essential position within the British colonial empire and thus played a central role in travel itineraries in Southern Africa. However, alongside its emergent success, previously envisioned within European colonial imagery of leisure and supremacy, participation in the present tourism value chain and value capture is uneven and skewed towards foreign and white-own tourism businesses. These patterns of exclusion potentially mirror the racial structural inequalities imposed by colonialism, which ended in 1980. In this paper, we contribute to scholarship on tourism global value chains (GVCs) by analysing the role and impact of history /colonial past on the current nature of the tourism value chain in Victoria Falls. In this approach, we adopt the concept of Coloniality of power to illuminate past continuities and explain the uneven participation and value capture among actors. More fundamentally, we provide a brief reflection on how tourism GVCs can be extricated from colonial and racial legacies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"156 ","pages":"Article 104131"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142422012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-10-03DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104124
Ellen Kohl
As the Rights of Nature movement gains political traction globally, researchers must examine how this transnational movement to extend rights to nature or natural entities is being operationalized in place. Proponents of the rights of nature contend transferring rights to nature constitutes a paradigm shift in human-environment interactions and will lead to solutions directed at the root causes of environmental problems. Critics contend that these rights-based governance structures have the potential to do more harm than good for environmental protection depending on the cultural and legal frameworks within which rights of nature are enacted. In this paper, I examine how rights of nature have been operationalized in non-Indigenous communities in the United States through an analysis of rights of nature ordinances passed in these communities between 2006 and 2020. Drawing on theoretical engagements with rights I demonstrate how the reliance on universalizing human rights frameworks and anti-corporation rhetoric both distinguish these ordinances from the broader rights of nature movement and center the rights of people to have access to a clean environment rather than the intrinsic rights of nature. In conclusion, I explore alternatives to how rights of nature are currently operationalized in non-Indigenous communities in the United States and call for increased research on the implications and impacts of rights of nature ordinances to assess whether they achieve their stated goals.
{"title":"Rights for nature or protecting people’s rights?: The operationalization of rights of nature in non-indigenous communities in the United States","authors":"Ellen Kohl","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104124","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104124","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As the Rights of Nature movement gains political traction globally, researchers must examine how this transnational movement to extend rights to nature or natural entities is being operationalized in place. Proponents of the rights of nature contend transferring rights to nature constitutes a paradigm shift in human-environment interactions and will lead to solutions directed at the root causes of environmental problems. Critics contend that these rights-based governance structures have the potential to do more harm than good for environmental protection depending on the cultural and legal frameworks within which rights of nature are enacted. In this paper, I examine how rights of nature have been operationalized in non-Indigenous communities in the United States through an analysis of rights of nature ordinances passed in these communities between 2006 and 2020. Drawing on theoretical engagements with rights I demonstrate how the reliance on universalizing human rights frameworks and anti-corporation rhetoric both distinguish these ordinances from the broader rights of nature movement and center the rights of people to have access to a clean environment rather than the intrinsic rights of nature. In conclusion, I explore alternatives to how rights of nature are currently operationalized in non-Indigenous communities in the United States and call for increased research on the implications and impacts of rights of nature ordinances to assess whether they achieve their stated goals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"156 ","pages":"Article 104124"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142422011","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 : 2024-09-29DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104123
Nitin Bathla
As urbanization attains an increasingly planetary reach, transforming agrarian landscapes and commons beyond the city-countryside divide, ‘rewilding’ is gaining increasing popularity as a protective countermovement. This countermovement, comprising of a patchwork of actors, including state-led agencies, philanthropic and citizen-led groups, as well as environmental lawyers, seeks to counter unregulated urbanization and mitigate its impacts by restoring biodiversity and ecological processes in areas designated as “wilderness” or “pristine nature.” However, these legally and culturally constructed boundaries between urban and wilderness frequently diminish and collapse as species like leopards, wolves, and cougars transgress and repurpose these spaces. This paper investigates the enmeshment of urban and wilderness through human-animal interactions, examining how the more-than-human ecology of extended urbanization is produced and inhabited. It explores the different strategies and modalities of rewilding that generate a mosaic of “wilderness” spaces, such as biodiversity parks, urban forests, safari reserves, abandoned quarries, waterfronts, and green corridors, amidst the extended urbanization of nature. The paper also examines the governance of these spaces, focusing on how legal and property boundaries are upheld and how these efforts are captured for further capital accumulation. While grounded in empirical research from the Northern Aravalli Region in India, this paper provides comparative insights into the global challenges of urban-wild enmeshment and the complexities of planning for coexistence in the era of planetary urbanization.
{"title":"Inhabiting more-than-human ecologies of Extended urbanization: Unruly leopards amidst urban-wild enmeshment in the Northern Aravalli region","authors":"Nitin Bathla","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104123","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104123","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As urbanization attains an increasingly planetary reach, transforming agrarian landscapes and commons beyond the city-countryside divide, ‘rewilding’ is gaining increasing popularity as a protective countermovement. This countermovement, comprising of a patchwork of actors, including state-led agencies, philanthropic and citizen-led groups, as well as environmental lawyers, seeks to counter unregulated urbanization and mitigate its impacts by restoring biodiversity and ecological processes in areas designated as “wilderness” or “pristine nature.” However, these legally and culturally constructed boundaries between urban and wilderness frequently diminish and collapse as species like leopards, wolves, and cougars transgress and repurpose these spaces. This paper investigates the enmeshment of urban and wilderness through human-animal interactions, examining how the more-than-human ecology of extended urbanization is produced and inhabited. It explores the different strategies and modalities of rewilding that generate a mosaic of “wilderness” spaces, such as biodiversity parks, urban forests, safari reserves, abandoned quarries, waterfronts, and green corridors, amidst the extended urbanization of nature. The paper also examines the governance of these spaces, focusing on how legal and property boundaries are upheld and how these efforts are captured for further capital accumulation. While grounded in empirical research from the Northern Aravalli Region in India, this paper provides comparative insights into the global challenges of urban-wild enmeshment and the complexities of planning for coexistence in the era of planetary urbanization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"156 ","pages":"Article 104123"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142356827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-09-29DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104129
Danai Liodaki
This paper explores the ideological backgrounds, normative motivations, and the degrees of alterity among makerspaces in Germany. It does so by connecting the question of alterity to discussions on development, and exploring to what extent and in which ways makerspaces aim to challenge the hegemony of traditional growth-oriented development. The study engages with a broad literature to conceptualize development as a hegemonic discourse and present main lines of thought that aim to challenge it. In parallel, it presents the history and diverse trajectories of makerspaces and the makers’ movement in Germany and beyond, rendering the question of their ideological backgrounds and their level of alterity as open. Empirically, the work engages with the Verbund Offener Werkstätten (Association for Open Workshops) and analyzes the content and language by which makerspaces – members of the association – describe themselves in their digital communication. Finally, the study proposes a new categorization for makerspaces – that can be generalized to other alternative spaces – regarding their level of alterity and degree of reproduction or opposition to the hegemonic views, values, and norms of growth-driven development. Through the engagement of diverse literature and analysis of the aforementioned digital texts, this paper offers important insights regarding: a) makerspaces’ alterity in relation to their typology and geographical location; b) the importance of analyzing the discursive practices of alternative economic and political spaces; and c) the transformative potential of alternative spaces in Germany and beyond.
{"title":"Is making alternative? Rethinking development in Germany’s makerspaces","authors":"Danai Liodaki","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104129","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104129","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper explores the ideological backgrounds, normative motivations, and the degrees of alterity among makerspaces in Germany. It does so by connecting the question of alterity to discussions on development, and exploring to what extent and in which ways makerspaces aim to challenge the hegemony of traditional growth-oriented development. The study engages with a broad literature to conceptualize development as a hegemonic discourse and present main lines of thought that aim to challenge it. In parallel, it presents the history and diverse trajectories of makerspaces and the makers’ movement in Germany and beyond, rendering the question of their ideological backgrounds and their level of alterity as open. Empirically, the work engages with the Verbund Offener Werkstätten (Association for Open Workshops) and analyzes the content and language by which makerspaces – members of the association – describe themselves in their digital communication. Finally, the study proposes a new categorization for makerspaces – that can be generalized to other alternative spaces – regarding their level of alterity and degree of reproduction or opposition to the hegemonic views, values, and norms of growth-driven development. Through the engagement of diverse literature and analysis of the aforementioned digital texts, this paper offers important insights regarding: a) makerspaces’ alterity in relation to their typology and geographical location; b) the importance of analyzing the discursive practices of alternative economic and political spaces; and c) the transformative potential of alternative spaces in Germany and beyond.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"156 ","pages":"Article 104129"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142356826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104121
Caroline Gottschalk Druschke , Eric G. Booth , Bathsheba Demuth , J. Marty Holtgren , Rebecca Lave , Emma R. Lundberg , Natasha Myhal , Ben Sellers , Sydney Widell , Cleo Aster Woelfle-Hazard
This Forum brings together river restoration researchers and practitioners to stimulate debate about the recent explosion of interest in North American beaver (Castor canadensis) and beaver-related practices in North American river restoration science and management. While the beaver is described in recent literature as a low-cost, high-impact ecosystem engineer capable of minimizing the impacts of wildfire, drought, flood, and disturbance across the continent, we consider the importance of shifting from a focus on prescriptive results—on what beaver get humans—and towards engaging with beaver in relational process. Through a set of provocations that highlight the potential damage beaver fixes pose for stream restoration, for beaver, and for the lands and waters they inhabit with humans and other beings, we invite settler river scientists, river restorationists, and river thinkers to question the increasingly taken-for-granted logic of beaver as isolated creature, ecosystem engineer, and river savior; defer to the millennia of theory about beaver and their relations on this continent, partnering with beaver and with the Native peoples who have known them longest; and reconnect beaver back to people, place, and time in support of lively, dynamic, diverse, flourishing river systems across the continent.
{"title":"Re-centering relations: The trouble with quick fix approaches to beaver-based restoration","authors":"Caroline Gottschalk Druschke , Eric G. Booth , Bathsheba Demuth , J. Marty Holtgren , Rebecca Lave , Emma R. Lundberg , Natasha Myhal , Ben Sellers , Sydney Widell , Cleo Aster Woelfle-Hazard","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104121","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104121","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This Forum brings together river restoration researchers and practitioners to stimulate debate about the recent explosion of interest in North American beaver (<em>Castor canadensis</em>) and beaver-related practices in North American river restoration science and management. While the beaver is described in recent literature as a low-cost, high-impact ecosystem engineer capable of minimizing the impacts of wildfire, drought, flood, and disturbance across the continent, we consider the importance of shifting from a focus on prescriptive results—on what beaver get humans—and towards engaging with beaver in relational process. Through a set of provocations that highlight the potential damage beaver fixes pose for stream restoration, for beaver, and for the lands and waters they inhabit with humans and other beings, we invite settler river scientists, river restorationists, and river thinkers to question the increasingly taken-for-granted logic of beaver as isolated creature, ecosystem engineer, and river savior; defer to the millennia of theory about beaver and their relations on this continent, partnering with beaver and with the Native peoples who have known them longest; and reconnect beaver back to people, place, and time in support of lively, dynamic, diverse, flourishing river systems across the continent.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"156 ","pages":"Article 104121"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142322528","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 : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104127
Tu Lan , Lin Zhang , Yongjiao Hu
This article dissects the current conjuncture facing Chinese international students in the U.S. higher education, situating their experiences within the history of Asian racialization. By examining key moments of the racialization of Chinese students in the US – 1949–1959, 2006–2017, and the period following 2018 – it illuminates how the intricate interplay of domestic racial politics and geopolitics have contributed to the paradoxical portrayal of Chinese students as both desirable and disposable within American racial capitalism. As they navigate their multifaceted roles as knowledge workers and prime consumers of educational services, these students encounter the challenges of an evolving neoliberal multiculturalism and fluctuating U.S.-China relations, placing them at the center of America’s ongoing political tensions. This exploration enhances our understanding of international student mobility, bridges discussions between critical race studies and geography of race, and introduces a fresh racial perspective to the field of education geography.
{"title":"Desirable and disposable: Tracing the racialization of Chinese students in American higher education","authors":"Tu Lan , Lin Zhang , Yongjiao Hu","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104127","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104127","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article dissects the current conjuncture facing Chinese international students in the U.S. higher education, situating their experiences within the history of Asian racialization. By examining key moments of the racialization of Chinese students in the US – 1949–1959, 2006–2017, and the period following 2018 – it illuminates how the intricate interplay of domestic racial politics and geopolitics have contributed to the paradoxical portrayal of Chinese students as both desirable and disposable within American racial capitalism. As they navigate their multifaceted roles as knowledge workers and prime consumers of educational services, these students encounter the challenges of an evolving neoliberal multiculturalism and fluctuating U.S.-China relations, placing them at the center of America’s ongoing political tensions. This exploration enhances our understanding of international student mobility, bridges discussions between critical race studies and geography of race, and introduces a fresh racial perspective to the field of education geography.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"156 ","pages":"Article 104127"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142327767","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 : 2024-09-27DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104128
Thomas S.J. Smith
As ecological and social crises mount, academic work which explores the transformation of unsustainable socio-ecological systems has flourished. Surprisingly, however, there have been few, if any, concerted attempts to consider the resonances and divergences between two of the most prominent approaches to rethinking the economy as we know it: degrowth, and diverse and community economies (DCE), respectively. In this Critical Review, I reflect on resonances and similarities, as they emerge from the academic literature. I argue that sites of dissonance, disjuncture or discomfort also emerge which have not been reflected on in the respective literatures thus far, primarily relating to questions of essentialising capitalism and growth imperatives. The recognition of this could lead to dialogues which enrich both perspectives.
{"title":"Degrowth and diverse economies: Shared perspectives and productive tensions","authors":"Thomas S.J. Smith","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104128","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104128","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As ecological and social crises mount, academic work which explores the transformation of unsustainable socio-ecological systems has flourished. Surprisingly, however, there have been few, if any, concerted attempts to consider the resonances and divergences between two of the most prominent approaches to rethinking the economy as we know it: degrowth, and diverse and community economies (DCE), respectively. In this Critical Review, I reflect on resonances and similarities, as they emerge from the academic literature. I argue that sites of dissonance, disjuncture or discomfort also emerge which have not been reflected on in the respective literatures thus far, primarily relating to questions of essentialising capitalism and growth imperatives. The recognition of this could lead to dialogues which enrich both perspectives.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"156 ","pages":"Article 104128"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142322529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-09-26DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104120
Alexander A. Dunlap , Benjamin K. Sovacool , Bojana Novakovic
Desert ecosystems have experienced an intensive and increasingly rapid integration of solar energy projects into their landscapes. The social and ecological impact of solar energy is particularly pronounced in California, given aggressive state targets to decarbonize its electricity grid. Between 2010 and 2024, more than 230 utility-scale solar projects have been sited in the Mojave and Colorado deserts, which excludes the deployment of rooftop solar systems on residences. This article explores lived experiences of people who live among intensive solar development around the community of Blythe, California. While solar energy is regarded as a “clean,” socially just and democratic technology, the practical and intensive development of solar energy has sobering and deleterious results on the community and natural environment there. This article demonstrates how solar energy development entrenches inequality, perpetuates racism and continues a trajectory of ecological degradation. It includes material and ecological harm, but also issues of aggravated mental health, anxiety, stress and misunderstanding, including fear of illness. To advance these lines of argument, this article relies on original data from participant observation and site visits, 29 semi-structured interviews (with 38 research respondents) and four focus groups. Based on these data, we find that the current imperative driving solar expansion raises profound and timely concerns, which are intensified by global, federal and, most immediately, state calls to accelerate and streamline solar production in California Deserts and beyond. The levels of extractive production, consumption and consequently material and energy use remain a structural problem, threatening the positive sociological potential of solar energy development.
{"title":"“Our town is dying:“ Exploring utility-scale and rooftop solar energy injustices in Southeastern California","authors":"Alexander A. Dunlap , Benjamin K. Sovacool , Bojana Novakovic","doi":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104120","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.geoforum.2024.104120","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Desert ecosystems have experienced an intensive and increasingly rapid integration of solar energy projects into their landscapes. The social and ecological impact of solar energy is particularly pronounced in California, given aggressive state targets to decarbonize its electricity grid. Between 2010 and 2024, more than 230 utility-scale solar projects have been sited in the Mojave and Colorado deserts, which excludes the deployment of rooftop solar systems on residences. This article explores lived experiences of people who live among intensive solar development around the community of Blythe, California. While solar energy is regarded as a “clean,” socially just and democratic technology, the practical and intensive development of solar energy has sobering and deleterious results on the community and natural environment there. This article demonstrates how solar energy development entrenches inequality, perpetuates racism and continues a trajectory of ecological degradation. It includes material and ecological harm, but also issues of aggravated mental health, anxiety, stress and misunderstanding, including fear of illness. To advance these lines of argument, this article relies on original data from participant observation and site visits, 29 semi-structured interviews (with 38 research respondents) and four focus groups. Based on these data, we find that the current imperative driving solar expansion raises profound and timely concerns, which are intensified by global, federal and, most immediately, state calls to accelerate and streamline solar production in California Deserts and beyond. The levels of extractive production, consumption and consequently material and energy use remain a structural problem, threatening the positive sociological potential of solar energy development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12497,"journal":{"name":"Geoforum","volume":"156 ","pages":"Article 104120"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142322527","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}
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